The Junkyard
by The Ginger Muffins
Summary: Guess who's back? Where do you go when you fail in a race? Do you stay in the realms, wandering aimlessly? Do you go to the Acceleron's world? Or do you go... Somewhere else?
1. The Junkyard

The Junkyard

The man groaned, his eyes fluttering open from a deep unconsciousness. He mumbled something incomprehensible, which could have been in any language. _ What happened? _He thought, struggling to remember, _I was bragging to Lani, about how swampland was 'my turf' and then… But the path across the water was clear- But I crashed! So… how am I still alive? _ And then his brown eyes finally registered his surroundings. He wished they hadn't.

He was floating, suspended in space, about three feet above the ground, which was red cracked Earth, much like the ground Highway 35 was situated on, but the hovering was not the thing that was terrifying. What was terrifying was the sky, which looked, well, wrong. He learned later that he had been staring into the face of infinity itself, but his human brain couldn't handle the perception of everything and had converted it into scary, weird, swirling colours. Then it got even weirder, as a portal, just like a HWY35 portal appeared.

An alien entered.

By this time the man was conscious of sounds- _robotic sounds _– coming from next to where he was hanging. Also by this time the man became conscious of the fact that he couldn't move his head from left to right, meaning that he had no clue as to the origins of these noises. Scary noises on either side, weird sky above, alien in front… If the man hadn't have had experience in dealing with the eerie and weird he would have been completely freaking out by now.

_Welcome to __The__ Junkyard. _It was a voice in the man's head, a voice that was calm and kind of female. It was also pretty terrifying in its own right. _I am an Acceleron, a creator of the Wheel of Power. This is, like a scrapheap, the place where the things that can be reused go. You failed in the race, but since you ar__e not broken you will be allowed the gift of life and the possibility of being recycled in future. Your vehicles are ruined, but you are not. _

"How long will we remain here!?" Cried the man, the first words he had spoken since his boast. His accent was thick, but his voice was slurred and tired. _What the heck is going on?_

_You will remain until the Ultimate Race is won. _

Then, a voice beside him, a cold, harsh, acrid voice, said, "How will we serve Gelorum? We cannot do anything unless ordered." The man froze. _A drone!_

The Acceleron spoke smugly. _You'll __just have to rust until your Mistress__ is sent here. _

"B-but what about food?! The Wheel won't be finished for months! I, being _human_, have to _eat._"

_This has been taken care of_, the 'kindly' Acceleron said; _you have been put into stasis during your stay here. You may get hungry, but you will not need food._

_Greeeeaaatt__… I feel so much better for knowing that. _The man sighed._ Thank you, Ms. Acceleron. __You've really made my day. Oh, and a special thank you to you too __Tezla__. 'All tracks lead to the end' my bum._

The Acceleron smiled smugly. _Enjoy your stay._

"But- WAIT!" The man cried, as the Acceleron left, letting the ex-realm racers fall to the ground. After a bemused two seconds, the Puerto Rican sprinted away from the large bloodcurdling hostiles. "Dios Mio!" He cried, understandably terrified. _Ho' __snap__ ho' snap ho' snap ho' snap…_ He repeated in his head, pelting as fast as his legs could carry him away from the creepy green and black robots. He gave another scream, and-

-Someone cried out his name from behind a pile of old cars that had been piled up to create a makeshift barrier between the makers and the aggressive elements of the unknown world. "Banjee!" the voice cried again, as Banjee vaulted across the wall, and landed directly on top of…

"Dresden? Alec?"

"Banjee!" The two racers cried together.

---

**This is a Banjee fic. Because he is awesome. Written by Jai, and critique is welcome. **

**Dios mio is so totally Banjee's catchphrase.**


	2. Guess Who's Back?

I had been about two months since Banjee had arrived in the Junkyard, (The drone chase had not been incidental, as Alec and Dan had spent some time exploring around the area beforehand and had found several places the drones couldn't reach). The months had been long and boring, especially as they had no need to sleep or eat, activities that take up most of peoples days. The only things they really had to entertain themselves were reminiscent ramblings, the drones and anything the Accelerons had found 'worth saving'. This left them with homesick aches, almost suicidal impulses, and a bunch of old notebooks they found, belonging to a man called H. Stilte.

Oddly enough, the drones weren't too bad. They were on either their primary program (Destroy all Humans), stood silently and blankly around, or they actually _communicated_. The communication was along the lines of "I know something you don't. Drones are better than you.", but it was enough to prove that even machines have a tiny spark of boredom in their circuits.

The notebooks from H. Stilte were found in an abandoned, battered briefcase that looked like it had just escaped explosion. The notebooks themselves were tarnished, but readable, and appeared to contain notes on the realms. H. Stilte had been foolhardy. Instead of going into the realms to win, he would stop his car in the middle of a race, step out, take notes on his surroundings, and then would press the EDR with only seconds to spare. The notebooks left many questions. How did Stilte enter the realms? When? Why? Why did he not try to win the race?

This didn't make much sense to the drivers, so they ignored all questions about the notebooks.

But that day, two months after Banjee had first arrived in this strange realm, Alec brought up a topic that made the other two racers stare. Banjee and Dan seemed like they would not be able to strike up an easy friendship, but when there are only two people in the entire world/realm/dimensional plane thing, you adapt, or you go mad. Anyway, the pair had been discussing one of the more 'entertaining' bits of the World Race, when Alec asked, "Who do you think Tezla will get to race in his realms now?"

After a couple of minute's silence, Dan asked, "What brought that on, Alec?"

Alec pondered the question for a moment. "I think… I'll have to show you." The two older drivers followed the former Wave Ripper to the area where most 'saved' objects appeared. When they saw it, Banjee stumbled back, crying "Esto es una locura!", and Dan nearly fell over. It was a flipped over, blue and white, sigil embellished _Sling Shot._ As in, Kurt's first car in the movies. Not the toy. It was pretty battered, and upside-down, but it seemed to be okay apart from that. There was no driver inside. "But… but that's… That's Kurt's car! What's it doing here? Last I heard, he was racing with some street racing team! So why-", Banjee spoke the entire sentence in Spanglish very quickly, with hand motions and expressions too awesome to get onto paper.

Dan managed to get his bearings enough to hold up a hand, stopping the flow of Banjee's rant. "Kurt was supposedly one of the best drivers in the World Race. I mean, he led the team… before he went AWOL, but anyway, he's with the Teku racing team, and so is Vert. Those two have probably been recruited by Tezla to help Kadeem…"

The three stared at the ground awkwardly. The only other one of the racers who had been around at the time they had been racing had become a bit of a taboo subject. This was slightly because they felt guilty for leaving Kadeem and Lani alone with only Doctor Tezla and Gig for company, but it was mostly because they had all been silently waiting for the former Dune Ratz leader to join them. It was a guilty thought that wouldn't go away, but secretly each of them had been looking forward to fresh company.

"Weeelll…" Banjee drawled, "At least we know that there are others out there. They'll come looking for us!"

"Yeah! I mean, Vert's my best friend," Alec exclaimed, "I'm sure that as soon as he hears what happened he'll leap straight into action!"

The excited pair glanced at Dan, who shook his head wearily. "Do you really think that Doctor Tezla will tell them anything that might 'deter' them from entering the racing realms? We'll be vanished stories from the map, just like Mr. Stilte." The older racers dreary voice deflated the other two. Desparingly, with little hope of rescue, they dragged their heels back to their camp.

---

Excerpt from H. Stilte's journals, October 29, 1976:

"The Realms are watched by far seeing eyes. These eyes are invisible, yet always there. I fear the creators are bearing upon us with secrets to terrible to bear. But we will learn when the stars are right. We will all learn."

---

Another dull day passed in the company of infinity. It was months after the incident with Sling Shot, and since that day there had been a steady flow of cars into the realms. 'Teku' and the 'Metal Maniacs', and if their cars were anything to judge by, the groups were an unlikely couple. Dr. Stilte had strict words to say about street racers; "Street Racing is an uncouth form of the already rotting art of Racing."

The three racers themselves had been gathering information at a steady rate, both about the teams now racing in the realms and the realms themselves. The notebooks were an odd humdrum of knowledge that must have made sense to its creator, as it was untranslatable until needed, and each page was a mess of blotted shorthand. The drones were no help either, as anything told by them was biased incredibly in the drones favor, usually followed by a nice gentle sprint.

On this particular day, Alec held up a hand. This school like maneuver had been created by the drivers as the interrupting point, in case someone had found something interesting. "Listen to this," The 'Surf-Rat' commanded, pointing to the notebook he was reading on from his inverted position. Banjee carefully collapsed from his handstand and Dan opened his eyes from his 'Meditation' position on the floor. "'The Drones are bound in metal chains for eternity- Such is the price for obeying their masters. They will only be free to see when their own walk in skin." Alec finished, glancing at the other two.

Banjee sighed, "This guy is obviously loco. Has to write everything in riddles."

And with that, the world imploded.

---

Not literally imploded, but everything fell into a pristine black. Banjee tried to will his eyes open, but either they were already open, and he was blind, or he was hallucinating in his unconscious state. "Hello-ooo?" He asked into the darkness. His own echo replied to him in a sing-song voice. "You will listen to the great Mistress Acceler. She will light the path and guide you!"

A voice, not his own, and female, resonated in the darkness. "Rejoice! For the Ultimate Race has been won! A member of your species has shown him to be worthy! Let light go forth!"

And with that there was a blinding flash; and resonant darkness.

---

When Banjee awoke, his face was pressed against the tightly packed red Nevadan earth. It was warm, although the air around was frigidly cold, as it so often is on cool desert nights. He lay on the comfortable, comforting, yet hard ground, shivering slightly as a fresh breeze picked up, and he wondered what had exactly happened.

_Wait_, he thought, _ColdNightSkyNormal__?Earth_

He rolled carefully onto his back, and –excelsior!- he lay bathing in the glorious pools of wonderful, fantastic, magnificent moonlight. _Earth?__ Earth!?! Earth! I'm back! I'm home!_

He leapt up, immediately stumbling back down as his sleeping feet gave out beneath him. But he determinedly stood up again, cautiously at first and then excitedly, jumping, whooping, skipping around with his hands in the air. Staring around, he noticed the slumbering bodies of Alec and Dan. "Guys! Guys! Amigos, compadre's, mes amis! Wake up, wake up, Awaken! We're back on Earth! We're home! Dirt! Wind! Moonlight! Well designed sky! The sound of engines! … Wait, what?" Banjee halted his victory dance- he could hear an engine… and voices. People? Or drones? Crawling behind a rock, he peeked up at;

"OhMiGosh!" he hissed, "A scary-Drone-Car-Eating-catching-Giant-Thing-a-mi-jig!"

There had been several sweepers in the junkyard, and the drones had driven around on them like drunken hillbillies, but the former world race drivers never found out what the strange, giant contraptions were called. Right beside the thing-a-mi-jig, there was _the _Highway 35 sign. Which meant… Banjee, now becoming ever more aware of his surroundings, noted the distant cube, a behemoth on the horizon.

A lank, Hispanic man was slowly fading into view in the predawn light, doing something to the sign. Banjeee squinted at the… teen? in the misted, starlit early morning glow. Was he a human? Friend or Foe? Or was he like Gelorum was, a wolf in sheep's clothing. The man jostled his brown hair. His jacket was blue, yellow and white- it had familiar writing on…

A tall, brawny black man approached the lanky one, his green eyes piercing through the mists. "Are you with us?" He asked.

"Yeah," Said the first man, "I'm with you."

The two maintained eye contact a few seconds, before being interrupted as a drone arm pulled a human body out of the front of the colossal black _thing._ The body looked young-ish, a tanned, world weary complexion scattered across ripped muscles. The face seemed harsh, and covered in stubble, but there was something familiar about this one, particularly the spark of youthful innocence playing through his brown eyes. "Are you two lovebirds done? We gotta go!" The voice, the voice… where had he heard it before…

"Lovebirds!" Spluttered the first indignantly.

The second, obviously more levelheaded one sighed, "Don't rise to it, Nolo, it just gives him pleasure."

There was obviously another conversation going on within the doo-dad, because the third man turned into the metal monstrosity's gaping mouth and yelled, "Yes, we're coming Kurt! For goodness sake, you start talking to me and you can't stop!"

_Kurt?_ Sudden, cold realization trickled down Banjee's spine as the three men climbed back into the hulking artificial beast, and someone inside started the engine. "Markie…" Banjee gaped as the green wheels started their slow turning. "Markie!" He cried, standing up, but knowing they wouldn't see him from the shadows, especially as their speed picked up.

There was only one thing he could do. Banjee threw himself in front of the truck-dillies headlights.


	3. Guess Who's Back? Part Two

**A/N: … Well, I got a liiiiiiittle bit distracted on this. All I can say is "Christmashomeworksociallife". And I'm sorry to leave you with a cliffhanger. It's in my nature to make it look like people are about to die. And sorry about the really long wait (again) but, um… I got nothin'. Thanks to everyone who reviewed. You get five awesome points. **

**Oh, and I'm making Karma a socialist. I… I don't really know why.**

**Aaannnddd…. Markie may seem out of character in this chapter, but I think that by making up with his brother his drive for revenge is gone by-by. So he is having a mental battle between moody and delightful, which will continue until the two mental sides have a peace treaty.**

---

_Inside the sweeper, two minutes beforehand. _

In the little cab where the steering wheel was, a burly southerner and a skinny red-head were having an argument about a constantly partially exploding skinny drone hybrid. The Southerner, Porkchop, growled in a thick accent, "If you don't stop that machine sparkin', I'm gonna…" He searched his mind for a particularly creative threat, "I'm gonna throw him out of the winda' at the next 7-11."

The skinny one, Monkey, seemed to cower at even the thought of his creation being smashed on the sidewalk, but raised his voice in defense of his creation, "His name's Sparky, Porkchop. Him not sparking is like you not eating Porkchops!"

For his part, Sparky sparked. "Hello!"

Down below in the hold the Acceleracers had split into several groups, each discussing different things. Karma, Taro and Tork were talking about the Russian situation (The entire country had been shut down for some reason and nobody could get in or out). Tork was also listening in on the conversation going on between Kurt, Nolo, and Mark, about the different speeds cars could take and if it made any difference how battered they were. Shirako was in a corner, listening to music on his headphones so loud it could be clearly heard from the cockpit where Porkchop was yelling at the engine for stalling.

The Sweeper came online with a loud thrumming sound. "About time!" Someone yelled, but nobody was quite sure who. Porkchop slowly accelerated and it seemed everything was running smoothly when Sparky sparked again. It was possible Porkchops logic had a hand in his reaction, as they were in the middle of a desert and the chance of running into something was slim, but mostly it was just a snap reaction, taken from having to put up with the little robot for half a year. Porkchop took his hands off the wheel and shook Sparky, telling the machine to "Stop Sparkin'!". Monkey tried to protect his creation but as he attempted to separate the two, he glanced over the burly-er man's shoulder and a sudden flash on the road caught his eye.

It was the second snap reaction in as many seconds. Monkey felt himself leap over Porkchop and land on the wheel, skidding the Sweeper sharply across to the right. The turn was so hard that it sent the entire group skidding across the Sweepers interior to land at the opposite wall, and nearly tipped the giant metal monster over. There was general chaos for a few moments, before Mark yelled; "What the _Heck _was that!?"

"Don't ask me." Said a very disgruntled, and slightly ruffled Porkchop, poking himself to make sure he was still there.

"There was…" Stuttered Monkey, "There was… There was a guy in the road!"

This statement was met with some very weird looks in Monkey's general direction. If the group hadn't been in a desert, you could have heard crickets chirping. "Umm…" Nolo said, "No there wasn't, Monkey."

"Yes there was!" Monkey replied indignantly.

"Monkey, you must be seeing things. There's no one out there." Karma sighed, "We've been up for almost 24-hours, it's no wonder-"

Monkey interrupted, almost screeching, "-But I wasn't seeing things!"

"Yes you were." Said Kurt.

"No I wasn't!" Monkey cried resentfully.

"Was!"

"Wasn't"

Meanwhile, outside, Banjee was wondering if he was still alive.

Back inside, the argument had been fruitlessly going on in the dark for several minutes before Taro came up with the sensible option. "We could _look_." He said, not willing to waste any more syllables on something so frivolous. He kicked open the door and peered out. Expressionlessly, he said, "Someone is there."

"See, Monkey, nobody's- What?" Mark began, before also shoving his head though the exit. In the new days sun, the partially robot Maniac could make out a person's body. His eyesight was a little rusty from the days in the black-and-neon Drones headquarters, but he knew what he saw. He had a debate in his head on whether or not to act stoic, as the sight of the other former World Race driver made the little kid part of him jump with glee, but soon realized that the new moody side had utterly lost as he was conducting the mental debate while running across the cracked earth yelling "OMG BANJEE!!1!"

The rest of the drivers, who had stepped out to see the commotion were surprised and rather disturbed by Markie's new/old nature. But they were even more surprised to see a people-person lying on the ground. Kurt and Taro recognized Banjee's uniform, and approached, followed cautiously by the Drivers who were not 'In the know'.

Mark, of course, reached the Puerto Rican driver first. He stopped running, and stared down at the silent, unmoving body. "Umm… Banjee? Are you alive?" The guy thought for a moment, "If you're not, I'd really rather you didn't answer."

"mnughsf…" Banjee said, "I mean, I think I am…"

"Great!" said Markie, pulling the Roadbeast team leader off the ground with ease.

Banjee stumbled, a little bit in shock at the length of his own reckless stupidity, or at least part of him was, before he quickly bounced back. "Hi Markie! Duuude, what happened to your arm." He said, mocking the Wave Ripper's with a surfer accent.

"Duuude… It got ripped off by Gelorum and replaced with a Drone arm," Markie said, playing the game.

"Duuude… That's really gross." Banjee replied, pretending to recoil. The pair laughed as the rest of the group came trooping towards them. Banjee stopped his laughter, and turned to the two other former world race drivers. Though it was not in Banjee's nature to be so stiff, he enjoyed Kurt's face when Kurt was uncomfortable. The Roadbeast driver delivered a curt nod, "Kurt Wylde."

Kurt was not sure how exactly to react to Banjee or Banjee's greeting, so his face contorted into slight embarrassment, a little annoyance, and some guilt thrown in too. "Castillo." He said, attempting to hide his emotions. It didn't work- Karma took down the embarrassment as a discussion topic later. She was the only one looking at Kurt though. The rest were watching Banjee harangue Taro. "Hi, Taro!"

"Banjee." Taro said with his usual monotone voice, his eyebrows leveled in what could have been confusion but was more likely annoyance. "Why are you here?" Taro asked, not as if _he _didn't know. He said it as if he did know but was asking Banjee to say his answer for the benefit of the class.

"To make things more annoying and generally irritating." Banjee said, not missing a beat. "Why is anybody here?" He grinned, "Anyhoo, why don't you introduce me to all these fine damas y caballeros."

They took a few moments to introduce the other members of the group. "Oh, so where are Lani and Doctor Tezla?"-

_The Doctor was growing impatient. He twirled around outside the little town a couple of miles from the remains of the Accelerdrome. "Where in the name of Oppenheimer's ghost are they?" He almost shrieked to the poor, forgiving Lani Tam._

_Lani sighed, "I don't know Doctor Tezla."_

"_Try reaching them on the intercom."_

"_I can't Doctor Tezla. They won't pick up."_

"_If they've lost that sweeper…" Tezla ranted on. Lani rubbed her forehead, wishing she had her Ipod. The others better have had a pretty good reason to leave her stranded with Tezla.-_

-Karma interrupted, "What about the drones?"

"I dunno," Banjee shrugged-

_The drones had always got a back-up plan. They were machines, their mind was in binary. Path one and path two. A and B. They had known there was a percentage chance that Gelorum would fail, and they had created a contingency plan in advance. They knew the only humans with the knowledge to defeat them would be too distracted with the realms to pay attention to the news of the outside world. So the Drones had organized months ago, and had economically, politically, socially, and physically isolated Russia. Nothing could get in or out, not even information. The world had no idea what was going on in the country, only that bombs weren't striking, that cars exploded, tanks sank into the earth._

"_Why Russia?" The media, having no idea of the situation asked._

_But the Drones knew. That was where it had all began, of course.-_

-"And Gelorum?" Kurt asked, anxiously. Banjee shrugged again-

_She needed a face. She could not return, could not do anything trapped in this clunky, disgusting form. It was the old body that was needed though. It needed to be fixed. She would have to see Dr. Tezla._

_She allowed herself a small chuckle. The _other_ Dr. Tezla, definitely. And then she would face her world._

_Gelorum was back. And she was _angry.-

-And then it was Banjee's turn to question. "Where's Vert? I was sure he was with you, but I don't see his surfer-boy looks among the Insane Clown Posse or Tron and his friends."

Kurt dared not look at his companions, but went straight on to answering Banjee's question. "We… we don't know."-

-_There was a light, like a rip in the sky. The car skidded onto the snow, screeching slightly as its tires slid against the snow. It was dark, and silent, and the blond shivered in the frost-bitten cold, cursing himself for forgetting his jacket. But it wasn't that bad, for the teenager at that moment was cursing everything. It was unlike him, but he didn't usually have days like the one he was having. He pulled out of the turn, and began to hammer on the little screen. Then, with one, shivering finger, he tapped out on the little car computer Shiroko had insisted on installing, "Find:car."_

_The computer bleeped a few precious moments away as the boy nervously glanced behind him. "Location: __Anadyr__ is a town and the administrative centre of Chukotka Autonomous Okrug, the extreme north-eastern region of Russia. Situated at 177°30__′__E. The date is; Thursday, December 24, 2008 at 1:15:00 AM. This is UTC 13 hours. From original position 20 hours."_

"_Anadyr… Where the is _that?_" He screamed exasperatedly. He froze, not literally, at once. He didn't need the flash of light or the screech of wheels to tell him. They were onto him. Glancing at the Accelerchargers and Wheel beside him, he floored it, at the same time trying to get a link with the others. _

"_Guys? Guys?" He cried desperately into the radio. "Shiroko! Check your email, I sent you the coordinates for the wheel so you can make a hologram… Oh… Guys, please, for the love of everything, answer me!"_

_  
He began to swerve, but caught himself. Distressed, he glanced at the screen and sped on. There were lights up ahead.-_

-"What do you _mean_ you don't know!? What happened to have that-" He waved his arms desperately, "Happen?" He wouldn't let anybody speak, "How can you lose a driver?"

Immediately, the Puerto Ricans mind wandered to Kadeem. "Where's Kadeem?"-

-_The man groaned. He managed to awaken, despite a headache like a drill and hung-over eyes._ _He gulped down. What had happened over the last few… days? Weeks? He managed to sit up- just- and grasp a look at his surroundings. He saw drones, drones everywhere, being loaded into a portal to go… where? Thanking everyone he could think of that they hadn't noticed him, a human, he stalked off into the buildings. It was definitely Hot Wheels City, but when had he gone there? When had the drones taken it over?_

_What had happened? He had been greeting the others… He had been greeting- the wheel had- the storm realm- 300 mph- he was- he had- Drones- Vert- Cap—_

_He caught his reflection in the glass of one of the buildings, and stood, dead still, in shock. It all came flooding back- everything that had happened…_

_With speed he recoiled from the mirrors image._

"_Oh… Oh Hazis help me… Kurt… Someone…" He gasped, his hand clasped over his mouth at the half-machine, mottled abomination before him, his human eye wide. "What have I done?"-_

---

**A/N :**** DUN Dun dun… ****Well, I couldn't bring Banjee and the gang back without Kadeem and Gelorum, could I? Kadeem's always been one of my favorite characters, and I want him back darnit! Gelorums' awesome too, although she needs a thesaurus. And yes, Vert is, as we say in the business, "Verily Screwed." But the how will have to wait. Sorry, other Vert fans. Also, I'm raising the rating because there will be some slightly scary stuff later- but only slightly.**

**Onto serious business… Pairings. I need help! I'm definitely doing TaroxKarma, but I have no idea about anyone else. Who to pair Lani with? Should I do yaoii? Introduce a new love interest? Please, help me with this!**

**I also hope this Chapter is long enough to make up for my absence. Thanks for your patience!**

**(H. Stilte will be a mystery until I say when. Until then, his last name means something in another language.)**

**-Jai**


	4. Testosterone Poisoning

**A/N: I'm upset. I was at the cinema yesterday, when I saw an advert for a racing movie that involved high tech cars, exotic locations and the world. It turned out to be, not a Hot Wheels sequal, but Speed Racer.**

Shorter Chapter. Sorry, but I'll try to be better next update.

So it was a particularly awkward desert reunion. Banjee grimaced visibly at the news of Kadeem's transformation. The Puerto Rican and the African had never been close, but working with someone for over three years gave one a certain attachment to ones peers. Particularly to peers who were fun to irritate. Finally, Banjee asked the question on the cusp of every one's minds. "So… If Vert won the ultimate race, shouldn't this be a, y'know, happily ever after situation? I'm still seeing killer robots around. Or am I missing something?"

Karma was the one to answer, "In all wars, you do not defeat the enemy all at once. Even after all the ceasefires and declarations have been signed by the leaders, there will always be pockets of resistance against the new regimes."

"So the drones are just lone gunmen, confused, dazed and disorganized with no chance of world domination? That's the news I've been waiting to hear all day." Kurt sighed. "At least we don't have to keep fighting."

There was a moment of silence that was soon broken by nothing other than that paragon of hatred in cramped rooms everywhere; a cell phone ringing.

"… Is that "Toxic" by Britney Spears?" Kurt questioned with a wrinkled nose. Shiroko was exceedingly close to having a musical heart attack, and most of the team members on both sides were at the very least confused.

Defensively, Nolo pulled his cell phone out of his pocket. "A friend put a virus on the phone!" He exclaimed, blushing at the sniggers of the others.

"Suuuuure…" Said Monkey, chortling with all the other Maniacs.

"Hi Lani," Nolo said to the handset.

Monkey nearly fainted, "When did _you_ get Lani's phone number? Why did you get Lani's phone number?"

The group laughter was increased doubly at the beginnings of what they did not know would soon become the tedious posturing of two testosterone poisoned men. At that moment, it was only funny.



"Just a sec', Lani," Nolo continued, pressing the cell to his chest and addressing Monkey, "She gave it to me last month, and I assume she gave it to me because she doesn't think I'm a _loon_." This statement was met by "ooh"s and "burn!"s from both gathered groups as he turned back to the conversation with Lani. "What's up?"

"You left me alone with ranting _Tezla _is what's up. Where the frick are you guys?" Every syllable in her voice was strained, as though her seemingly endless niceness was about to snap.

Monkey, too, had a bone to pick, "She thinks _I'm _a loon?! I'm not the one who claims to be hardcore techno, but has a Britney Spears ringtone!"

"She thinks' you're a loon because you freakishly stalked her for months!" Nolo yelled at Monkey, before speaking back to Lani, "No, not you. We're talking about another friend. Another _mutual_ friend. Yes, you know her."

"At least I had the guts to _show_ her I liked her! How is she gonna know about you? Psychically?"

Nolo shot Monkey a face melting look. "I'm too mature for this discussion. No, not you Lani. We'll be there as soon as possible." He snapped his cell phone shut. "Let's roll."

The group began the migration back to the Sweeper slowly, with Nolo stalking at the front, and Monkey sulking at the back. In the middle, the Teku and the Metal Maniacs found themselves giggling and gossiping like a group of teenage schoolgirls. Banjee made his way to Kurt, who was walking between Karma and Wylde. "What was _that_ all about?" He asked, gesturing to Monkey and Nolo, and making explosion motions with his hands.

Kurt sighed, his gloved hand ruffling his hair back, "It's a long, complicated story."

Shoulders shaking, Karma snorted, "No it isn't. It's a simple case of monkey love."

"I guessed, that, Ms. Eiss." Banjee said.

"No, not Monkey monkey. Monkey as in the animal. Alpha male like beta female. But look! Beta _male_ is challenging his turf! Fight to the death. Rar." Karma seemed to sigh the entire sentence, indicating that she had been tired with the situation before it had even become a situation. "Look, do I have to go through the entire birds and bees thing with you, or do you get it?"

Markie grinned at Banjee, "This is basically what our life has been like for the past few months."

Banjee sighed, "Your time in the Acceledrome seems to have been far more entertaining than mine."

"It feels just like being back in high school," Kurt's eyes wandered off back in time, "Once, we were 

trying to impress some girls, so Dan and I-"

"Oh my-" Banjees eyes nearly popped out of his head. "I can't believe I forgot! Dan and Alec are back there! I left them behind a rock!"

"Wait wha-" Wylde said, but was interrupted by his brother, who was yelling, "You left them behind a _rock_!?"

"I-I didn't mean to!" Banjee tried to explain, but found himself being pulled by a friend-starved Kurt. "Help! Mad ex-spy!"

"Huh." Karma's forehead crinkled as she watched the odd chain of Kurt, Banjee and Wylde dash off.

Tork, who had been talking to Taro, turned, confused. "Where are they going?"

"Behind a rock to get some bodies." Karma said, climbing into the sweeper.

--

_Vert knew from cinematic experience that when you said "At least it can't get any worse" The universe would trip over itself to prove you wrong. That was why he had always cautiously avoided that phrase. From the experience he was gathering in Russia, he realized, things would get worse no matter what you did._

Trying to avoid sliding on the snow and barely seeing the town's empty streets through the flurry of snow, he glanced back to see the Silencerz closing in on him. Upon looking forward, his heart nearly stopped as the needle on the fuel gauge dropped to 'E'. Empty. It had brought him through every realm, it had driven few hordes of drones, and it had escaped from an underground base while it exploded, but the Reverb could never hold enough fuel to do all of that put together. The car slowed to a halt.

The blond had two options: He could sit in the car in the battery provided warmth and wait until he and mankind's last hope were captured by megalomaniacal scientists, or leave the car with the artifacts and possible risk freezing into a giant ice pop.

Glancing out the car door, he shivered even with the heaters at full blast. But his gaze was soon drawn to the Wheel and Accelechargers. He knew what he had to do. Tucking them under one arm, Vert took a deep breath, and plunged into the heart of a frozen Russian winter.

--

**A/N: I didn't do everything I wanted to this chapter, unfortunately. I did enjoy Monkey and Nolo's argument. Poor Lani. Even I don't know how this is going to get resolved.  
**

**Poor Nolo too. But he is the second most likely person to have that ringtone in the group.**

Next time!: Two high speed chases, a really stupid conversation between Karma and Taro (Shock!), things get worse and Tork gets a back-story of some sort.  



	5. Things Get Worse

AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAH… Many sincere apologies for my lateness yet again. I tend to put stuff off until last minute...

Anyway, on with the show. I think I already have a disclaimer up…

--

_If you questioned an authority on survival on running through a Russian snowstorm in summer clothes, there would be two chains of thought. One would be "No. You would probably not survive.". The other train of thought would be "Are you freakin' KIDDING ME?? That's the stupidest thing I've ever heard of! That's like running in front of a speeding spacecraft! DON'T DO IT! Especially if you're foreign and in an unfamiliar city, double especially if you come from a place with a usually warm climate."_

_Vert himself had known that the idea of plunging into a snowstorm whilst wearing clothes that were made in another dimension and therefore did nothing for earth climates was a bad one. On the other hand, most of his life had been made up of doing stupid, impulsive things and so far fate had seen fit to not make him die. So what he was basically rooting for was some serious deus ex machina to show up. He heard the screeching of tires behind him, and decided to attempt to make his own luck, for once. The blond Californian ran forward until he hit a building (Still not being able to see). Then he felt along the edge of the wall until he found a door handle. He pulled open the door and dashed in, slamming it back behind him._

_He had run in on a group of adults preparing for Christmas day. They had a rather sad little tree in one corner, and several small presents wrapped in newspaper were underneath it. It was a rather depressing scene. Each of the supposed parents stared up at him in shock. A woman, who looked in her mid forties, began to cry, wailing "Oh Бог, I' m огорченный! Мы didn' середина t disobey! Мы как раз хотели быть добросердечны к нашему немногой одни! Пожалуйста don' t сообщает нас!" _

"_I-" Vert tried to explain in a gulped syllable that he couldn't understand._

_One of the men muttered to the other, "И бедный человек I увиденный ему вокруг городка перед, так he' s не осведомитель…"_

_The other replied a little louder, "Так… Кто он?"_

"_Вы там, что ваше имя?" The first said to Vert, his tone threatening. _

"_Может он поговорить русского?" The second, younger looking man asked, his voice sounding far gentler. "Можете вы поговорить русского, мальчика?"_

"_Uh..." Vert croaked, but stopped at the sound of screeching wheels outside. He turned sharply and stared out the one window at an un-halting pair of headlights. _

"_Оно приходит через стену!"_

_Vert was already running, trailing apologies, and made it through the back door in time to hear the Silencerz cars smash through the front._

_--_

"So why did you wake up first, do you think?"

The Acceleracers were back in the Sweeper, with the added bonuses of Banjee, and the still unconscious Alec and Dan. Banjee stretched, shoulders creaking, "No clue. I just did." There was a pause, and Banjee asked, "Sooo… Where are Lani and Tezla? I reckon I gotta bone or two to pick with them."

Nolo flipped out his cell and typed in Lani's number, "Should probably call them, seeing as we're about an hour late into meeting her."

Monkey frowned, but any arguments were cut off by Lani's outburst on the phone. "For GOODNESS' SAKE! WHERE ARE YOU GUYS!?" The racers shared a synchronized squint. Lani had finally snapped.

Nolo winced, moving the phone away from his ear in an effort to avoid going deaf, "In the same place as we were befo-"



"YOU HAVEN'T EVEN MOVED? "

"No, Lani, but you really should listen to-"

Lani's voice lowered from a yell to a cold muttering that made Nolo shudder. She mumbled angrily, "Tezla is going over how quantum theory relates to the wheel. He won't shut up about how there's something about time travel in this, and he could prove some obscure scientist right. I swear, if you guys aren't here within 15 minutes I'm going to shoot myself."

"But Lani-"

"NOW NOLO!" She screamed, hanging up.

There was a stunned silence in the car. Banjee looked around, "Jeeze, what did you guys _do_ to her?"

Dan moaned, and tilted his head, his eyes fluttering open. "B-Banjee, what happened?"

Banjee gave the ex-Street Breed racer a playful poke, "We're back!"

"We are?" Dan sat up and took in the faces of the drivers. "Huh, well… I don't really know how to respond…"

"Don't worry," Grinned Banjee, and proceeded to fill the newly awakened Dresden on what they knew was going on. The other racers then told the long and winding tale of their own few months in the Acceledrome, whilst Porkchop got the Sweeper moving again. Soon, everyone was basically getting along with each other, despite a few prickly patches. Dan and Kurt were chatting with ease, after a few moments of tense awkwardness . The Teku and the Metal Maniacs, plus Banjee, had entered a general discussion about cars and the realms, and how the cars had even stuck to the track at all in the cosmic realm, and how the drivers had stayed stuck to their seats, and who lived in the city in the Metro realm, and what the skeletal fish really were in the Water realm, and what the Accelerons were really doing in 

the end. The conversation ended with every person agreeing that the Accelerons must have been very, very bored. Both Dan and Banjee had grabbed some of H. Stilte's journals and they were passed around, with drivers sometimes saying random quotes such as, "They are not at fault at all, beaten by those who still stand tall," and "Always they will be glorified, no matter however many died."

The racers in the end concluded that Stilte was a loon and that the fact that each page of his journals was written in a spiral formation only added to that fact. Stilte was also deemed to have read too many horror stories. A couple of the drivers (The ones who always had to give things deeper meanings than they actually had,) deemed that the entire thing was supposed to be a metaphor for society in general, and then began a heated discussion about the nature of this. Those who had simply decided that the book was made up of the deranged ramblings of someone who enjoyed simply being convoluted enough to please Tezla began a much more interesting debate about international football/soccer.

Little did they know that on the other side of the globe, Vert Wheeler was running for his life, and the fate of the whole known world.

--

_He felt like he wasn't breathing and his lungs were bursting and yet the surfer boy could hear his breath as if from a long way away. Behind him he knew that invisible cars were searching for him. He also knew that bad things would happen if they caught him, so he kept running. All around him there were signs in Russian, which were of little help. Vert heard the snow crunch behind him, and realized they had found him._

_Rushing blindly onward, Vert slid and skidded to the edge of a river, nearly falling in. There was an extremely thin layer of cracked ice over it, and it was about 50 feet across. There was a bridge right next to him, but Vert realized that there were Silencerz cars there, due to the snow not falling where they were. There were Silencerz all around him. The Teku racer backed away, his foot slipping off the ledge. He pulled himself back up. The Silencerz moved closer- he could feel the heat of an engine directly in front of his shins. _

_He glanced back at the river, then back at the cars._ _The only thought that went through his head was _This is a Really stupid idea. _Vert turned around, and plunged into the frozen waters._



--

"Rrgh, it's cold today." Banjee said, as he stepped out of the Sweeper. He stopped, hand behind his head, looking at Tezla and Lani as they stared at him. "You look like you'd seen a ghost!"

"Oh God, Banjee!" Cried Lani, pulling the Puerto Rican into a big hug. "I'm-so-sorry-about-abandoning-you-I-really-didn't-want-to-but-Doctor-Tezla-insisted-and-I've-felt-so-guilty-about-it-so-please-forgive-me!"

"Uhh… Sure!" Banjee smiled, and Lani gave him a grin. As Lani released him, Banjee turned and saw angry stares emanating from Monkey and Nolo. He shot them a smarmy smile while Lani repeated the action to Dan, minus the hug, a subtraction that Dan seemed pleased with. "Fine." He said, "Just make sure it doesn't happen again.

The two former inmates of the Junkyard, (AKA the Accelerons toybox), let their eyes slide to Tezla. The good Doctor felt the unfriendly glances and unsuccessfully attempted to sneak away, but was cornered. "Um…" Tezla attempted to begin, but was quickly cut off by two angry young men.

"You left us for dead!" Dan came in first.

"And didn't even try to help us!" Banjee cried.

"And probably didn't contact our family's at all!"

Tezla was probably about to say something that would utterly switch the blame to someone who had no clue as to what was going on, but the day ways saved by a groan inside the Sweeper.

Banjee cried "Alec!" and ran to the sweeper at once, while Alec stayed behind a moment to give Tezla an 'I've got my eye on you' glare.



Alec was already sitting up by the time Dan made it to the sweeper. The teenager looked confused, yet cognizant. "We're back?" He asked.

"Yup," Banjee replied.

"We're alive?"

"Yup"

"Markie has a drone arm?"

"Yup."

Alec shrugged, "Okay." He stood up, and stumbled out of the sweeper. After being treated to the same apology as Dan by Lani, he stared around at the ranged array of faces, searching for something that was not there. "Where's Vert?" He asked.

There was an almost collective sigh among the racers as the topic that most of them had wanted to avoid finally came up again. It was ever more awkward knowing that Alec and Vert had been best friends. Finally Banjee said, "They don't know, Alec…"

"What?!" Alec said in confusion and anger, "Why not?"

"We lost contact with him…" Lani murmered. "Sorry. I really wish we knew where he is."

Kurt tried to smile comfortingly, "I'm sure he's _fine _guys…"



--

_Vert pulled his head out of the water, somehow. It was freezing, and he could already feel his muscles seizing up and his head pounding. The Wheel was light, but the Accelerchargers felt like lead at his current strength. He swam, his legs pounding the water behind him, his arms breaking the ice ahead. He compared the water to the California ocean, telling himself that it wasn't as cold as Cali, it wasn't that cold… About half way across, the blond halted, bobbing in the water. He realized that with his current weight, he wouldn't make it. _

_The poor eighteen year old took a deep breath, and dropped the chargers, and for all he knew condemned mankinds last hope to a watery grave. Rubbing his eyes, he tried to focus on the water ahead, and not his body. He knew hypothermia was setting in, and probably frostbite too. He remembered how his mom would always stop him from being in the water too long, in case of few. As a nurse, Mrs Wheeler had always been nothing if not health conscious. _

_He realized that his mind was drifting dangerously, and managed to pull up a few stores of strength for a few more strokes. Vert's fingers finally hit the concrete wall of the rivers other side. With his last ounce of strength, he pulled himself up and onto the frozen ground. He stared around, fully away of his vision fading. He couldn't see anything… the weight of his exhaustion finally collapsed upon him, and he fell back to lie on the cold earth. Staring up at the stars, he wondered vaguely about whether the others were okay. The stars were suddenly blocked out by a silhouette._

_The last thing Vert saw before he lost consciousness was a RD-L1. And it looked like it was smiling._

--

**DUN Dun dunn!**

**Maybe I should simply rename this fic "Vert Wheelers Really Bad Day." Because it only gets worse…**

**Am I evil? Maybe. **

**So, some of the stuff I said would happen during this chapter during the preview in the last chapter didn't happen. That's because I've switched the order of events round a bit, and I like it better this way. Sorry to all again about the long wait. **

**I also apologize for the EXCEEDINGLY Vert-centric chapter. I just wanted to get this out of the way so I can bring Gelorum back into the picture. And with Gelorum comes Kadeem, and I love Kadeem.**

**Thanks to everyone for your nice reviews, and I promise all will be unveiled in time. Yes, I am addicted to cliffhangers. **

**I'll try and update sooner. But, as you may have noticed, I am pretty scrappy in that department.**

**Thanks for all your help guys! **

**-Jai.**


	6. There is no Machina

**A/N: Alright Rubs Hands Eet's time for some seeriouz beeznuiss. **

**Disclaimer: I don't own Acceleracers. Like, at all. If I did own there'd be a third movie by now, and Karma would have exploded some drones. So there.**

**This chappie does not involve Gelorum, Kadeem or (amazingly) Vert. **

--

The Acceleracers were just settling down after several days' worth of excitement. They had somehow started a fire, and were all slumped around it, tired, hungry and homeless. All, excepting Banjee, Alec and Dan, who had been K.O'd for some time, and felt very much awakened by the presence of air. Alec suggested to Banjee that they satisfy their boundless energy by taking a walk. Dan sat down, trying to think as slowly, the air was filled with snores and gentle breathing. He set himself to the problem that everyone else had found themselves too tired or too alive to be bothered with. The question was a very big one, that involved much concentration. _What would they do now? _ They had no base, no cars, no way of knowing what was going on, no food (a pressing matter that he was certain would soon become an issue), no way of getting back to the realms, no artifacts of supreme power, and no Vert. Also, as they had approached Lani and Tezla, the Sweeper's engine had begun to hiccup, signifying that it was out of power. Dan also felt that the Drone problem wasn't as sussed as the others has insisted, or rather hoped, it had been. There was also all the Russia stuff, which nobody had ruled out as "not our problem". The Street-breed driver was certain that it was all connected, but had no clue how. In frustration, he pulled out one of the Stilte notebooks, and flipped it to a page at random. It red;

-

_Under the spreading chestnut tree,_

_I sold you and you sold me;_

_-George Orwell, 1984._

-

"Well, that wasn't helpful at _all_, Mr. Stilte. Let me try this again." Dan flipped through the book again, until he came to the note inside the front cover. "Let me see."

-

_эксперименты осуществили в Anadyr, Россия, и были почти безытоговы_

_-_

Dan leaned against a helpful rock, caressing his forehead. One of the lessons that came out of the World Race with him had been that it was really hard being the responsible one. Really hard. He 

glanced at the other drivers, hoping one of them would soon wake up and be responsible. "Alright, Stilte-y boy, I'm going to try this one more time…"

-

_Deal With_

_ The Press_

_ing ProBlemS_

_ First_

_ Then try the harder more_

_worrisome ones_

_But Sure SolutionsBecomeProblems_

_ Make Former Don't Future_

-

"Mr. Stilte, I that seems to be applicable to our situation, apart from the fact that A) I can't read it, and B) I have no idea why it is in your notebook, as it has nothing to do with killer racing robots from a different dimension."

"Talking to yourself is a sign of madness, _Camarada-menino._"

Dan yelped, clutching at the helpful rock. "What the heck, Banjee?!" He took a moment to compose himself, before replying, "Being a complete _moron_ is a sign of madness too, don'cha know."

"Oh, I know I'm mad and I fully accept it. You need to learn to just chill and let things flow, man." Banjee smiled.

"Please tell me you aren't going to sing that song again." When Dan was fully satisfied that he wasn't going to hear the 'Pretty Prince of Parties' song yet again, he continued, "You're beginning to sound like 

Vert and Alec when they talk. The California surfer-hippie air doesn't suit you. Speaking of whom, where _is_ Alec?"

"Taking a nap. Dude's like a cat, he's all hyper and full of energy, then he has to sleep for ten hours. You got any clues on Vert?"

Dan sighed. He'd had a bit of a soft spot for the surfer kid, uppity brattiness aside. "No idea at all. We'll need a miracle to find him." There was a pause, which was another decent point for the non-existent desert crickets to show themselves.

"Damn, that usually works." sighed Banjee. He got an odd look from Dan.

"What do you mean 'that usually works'?" asked the older.

Banjee shrugged his shoulders, "Well, usually when you say something like that, something so full of dramatic potential, something dramatic happens."

"You mean a miracle should have happened because I wanted it to?" By now it was fully day, and the sun was beating down powerfully, making it harder and harder for the others to sleep. Some of them were beginning to wake up, with some twitching and moaning and other signs of consciousness. Banjee continued his conversation with Dan, "Are you _sure_ there isn't any deus ex machina type of stuff in Stilte's notebooks?"

At those words, Tezla shot up from lying down to a waist-up position as if in a scene from 'tales of the crypt'. "WHAT DID YOU SAY?!" He screamed, an expression of anger that caused everyone who had been asleep to shoot into awakeness, certain that the good Doctor had finally lost it.

"Weell," Said Banjee, nonchalantly, "I talked about pirates with Alec for a bit, then I came over here and discussed deus ex machina with Dan-"



"I MEAN AFTER THAT! LIKE, JUST A FEW SECONDS AGO!" Tezla screamed, marching towards the former Junkyard inmates as everyone else conveniently remembered something that they'd left in the sweeper and they had to go get right then. "ABOUT H. STILTE! STIIIIIIIILTE!!"

"Oh right, we have his diary."

"GIVE IT TO ME!" frothed Tezla, "WHAT DOES IT SAY!?"

Banjee giggled playfully, "It says, 'Dear diary, today I asked a tree to marry me, and I cried so much when it said no' –in crayon."

"Does it actually say that?" Asked Dan, peering over Banjee's shoulder.

"No. I made that up."

Alec looked bemusedly amused, "Sounds like something he'd say though."

After a rant about respecting the work of the greatest scientist for generations, Tezla began to calm down enough to plead. "Please… It would help so much…"

Banjee glanced at the other two ex-Junkyardians. "Lets see, give the key to unknown power and distant dimensions to a guy who got us locked in a Junkyard without rescue, or keep it and maybe get power and riches for ourselves. Hmm… that's a toughie. Guys?" He looked at the other two in mock confusion. They simultaneously shot him an 'are-you-kidding-me?' look. "Oh dear, Tez. Looks like this is **no** contest. Geddit? _No_ contest? Ha, I'm so witty." Lani's giggle was heard from inside the Sweeper, as she was the only one who laughed.

Tezla twitched for a moment, before storming off in a huff. Banjee smiled again. "Now that that's over with, I'm bloody starving! And I would be shocked if I was the only one who was."

A few moments later, chaos reigned. "Thai food is godly!" "Yeah, like the nearest town will have a Thai take-out." "I think pizza." "But I'm _vegan!_" "We need to eat healthy." "CHOCOLATE!"

Karma calmly interrupted. "Excuse me, but I think most of us are missing a crucial point here." Everyone stared at her, in the knowledge that something terribly logical was about to take place. "Ladies and Gentlemen, today is the 25th of December. Merry Christmas."

This news brought very weird feelings out to the open. They had forgotten Christmas, and even if they weren't all Christian, forgetting felt odd. It was like those movies where someone gets frozen and wakes up to find that all they loved was dead. "Aw, snap." Said Nolo.

"And since it is Christmas, most of the stores will be very, very closed." Continued Karma. One could almost think she gained pleasure from bad news.

"Double-snap." Supplied Nolo.

"On the other hand, there will almost certainly be a 7-11 open."

"Thank GOD." cried Kurt, "I need a coffee." Like a spark exploding dynamite, this small sentence was followed by many others, all demanding food and warm drinks and many other random things that didn't seem to be needed in their situation.

Sighing, Karma took out a pen and notepad. "Let me get this all down."

--

Buddy-boy.

**A/N: Look, this chapter doesn't end with someone in imminent danger, yippee! I must be losing my touch…**

**Sooo… Got some stuff to say about this chapter, yay! The song Dan refers to Banjee singing is "Prince of Parties" by The Flight of the Conchords. They're awesome, I recommend looking them up on YouTube. Dan is put in charge of the Street-Breed in WR, and he looked like he preferred beating everyone on his team to leading it. The thing about the crickets takes us back to chapter 3, when Monkey was insisting that someone had jumped in front of a Sweeper. **

**And Tezla went loco because Stilte's journal is the equivalent of Einstein's diary. It's enough to make any doctor wild. And Karma has a pencil and notebook because she's organized. And prepared. Like a boy scout.**

**And now, a semi contest! Yay! I would like to acquire some background characters, so if ya'll have ideas, I need a store clerk and a shelf packaging guy for the next chapter, a car salesman, some random people and a car store Santa for the chapter after that, and some people to email Shirako for the chapter after that. So just say that you or your character would like to get involved, and plz give me enough details so that I don't screw them up.**

**Next chapter- Karma, Tork, Nolo and Banjee go shopping.**

**That is all.**


	7. Intrigue and Mad Science

**First off, an AN: I'm sorry for the inconvenience sincerely guys. Stuff happened over the last few years that I'd rather not wangst about here. This is about the story. Looking over the last few chapters I've noticed typos and things, and these will be fixed… at some point. But I'm back on this story (stories without endings are pitiful things, and this has to get to rocking), and it will be awesome. So thanks for bearing with me, and lets get back to business!**

"Fraaawsty the snowman,

Was a jolly happy sawl,

With a corncob pipe

And a buh-ten nose

And two eyes made outta coaaaaaal…" Crooned the radio, in a country ballad imagining of the already obnoxious holiday themed carol. "Would you shut that racket off?" Cried Jen, who was sweeping up in the aisle reserved entirely for beef jerky. "It's bad enough that I have to work on _Christmas_ but the fact you keep _reminding me _that I have to work is just _cruel_ and I hate those carols _anyway_ and there's _nobody_ in the store."

Ed, who was a tall, slender man, leaned forward at the register. "I get to control the station today. I am in charge, after all." He smiled smugly.

"So," Jen spat, staring at a security camera, "why _aren't_ you _mad_ about working _today_?" She punctuated her question with a heavy sweep of the brush, almost knocking over one of Ed's meticulously stacked piles of soda cans.

"I'm Jewish, and I live alone." Ed grinned, still reveling in his own arrogance. "No plans, no family, no reason to think of today as anything other than a Thursday. Except, of course, for the holiday carols, my favorite thing about this time of year." He was still grinning. Jen marched up to the front desk, a snarl etched into the lines on her face. As his grin faltered, she grabbed his shirt, growling. Luckily for him, at that moment our heroes entered the gas station.

It wasn't everyone, of course, because not many could fit in Tezla's car. After some debate, Karma became the advocate for the Teku, Tork for the Metal Maniacs, and Banjee as a general advisor. Bickering, of course, had lengthened the process somewhat, and it was nearly noon by the time the three managed to drive into the town, Mobias. Everywhere was closed, as had already been predicted, apart from the 7/11, another prediction come true. After saving the world, they would take what they could get. "-ying, what are we going to do now? Do we tell people?" Tork was saying as the three racers stepped into the gas station.

"I doubt it," Karma replied, scanning the store skeptically, "For one thing, I think the Silencerz are agents for a government. I doubt a private group could organize them. So people at the top already know about all this."

"What are Silencerz?" Banjee asked, peering down aisles in search of food. Tork and Karma exchanged glances.

"We don't really know," said Tork.

"But they're probably bad," added Karma, now inspecting the coffee-machine.

"What do we know?" Asked Banjee, gathering armfuls of tortilla chips and pre-popped popcorn.

Karma shrugged, and grabbed a stack of paper cups. "We know they like silver and purple, their cars have turned into other cars, they want us to lose, and they enjoy creating dissent. Pretty sure that makes them bad guys, if we're playing by the rules of cliché poker."

"Also, if Vert's not dead, he's probably with them," Added Tork, "Since the Drones kind of… collapsed, and the Silencerz still seem to have a strong infrastructure, he'd have probably ended up there."

"Or wandering the Realms for eternity." Karma added dryly. She turned to the storekeepers, "Do you guys have those… Holder things for coffee mugs? We need at least twelve cups."

"You guys… having a Christmas party?" asked Ed, pretending to have not been eavesdropping. His hand was slowly making its way towards the panic button beneath his desk. He was sure he knew their faces from somewhere, and he watched a lot of 'America's most Wanted'.

"We're role-playing!" Banjee gasped, "Can't break character. Cause that's how… Gygaxiers celebrate this day. Role-playing and coffee and bad convenience store food. This explains our odd behavior." Ed was almost convinced.

"Can we buy all this please?" Karma asked, as she and her two compatriots dumped their faux-groceries on the counter. ("Do we really need that much beef jerky?" Asked Banjee. "You haven't met Porkchop." Tork replied, rolling his eyes.) Karma waved at the boys, "You two start taking stuff to the car and I'll pay."

"You sure?" asked Banjee chivalrously, despite having no method of paying.

"I'll be fine." Karma shrugged. "Hurry up."

"Uh… your total comes to $295.50," Ed said, watching the boys leave suspiciously, "Debit or Credit?"

"Debit please," Karma replied. She felt a sudden sense of foreboding.

Ed ran her card through the scanner, and his eyes instantly widened. "Oh my god," he gasped, staring at Karma, "You- you're one of them! One of the Bubonic 12! PLEASE DON'T KILL ME."

"Bubonic 12?" questioned Karma, backing away.

Jen grabbed her phone from her pocked, and punched in 9-1-1, "Stop being such a dursbury, Ed! PRESS THE BLOODY PANIC BUTTON."

Karma swore, and ran for the car, just as Tork had finished filling the tank, "Drive!" she commanded, jumping into the back seat.

"Why?" Banjee asked from behind the wheel, as Tork took shotgun.

Karma clenched her fists. "A) When somebody yells at you in panic to drive, you _drive_ Banjee, and B) _for reasons beyond my ken, the police are after us, and want us arrested_."

"Oh," said Banjee, breaking into a mischievous grin, "A police chase, eh? Sounds like fun."

Simultaneously, Tork and Karma reached for their seatbelts.

"Weeeeeeeeeepaaa!"

_The other Doctor Tezla answered her door at three in the morning, not because of curiosity, but because most of her clients knocked at her door at three in the morning and she knew to be ready. She was one of the only mad scientists who catered to the underworld. If you needed an ungodly abomination or a new face, she was the one to call. Her fees were high, but the result was worth it, if you could ignore her witch-like cackles._

_That night, though, was special. It echoed back to a night years before, when a monster had arrived in her home looking for a human face. It was such a beautiful monster, clanging metal, black and green, a beast with too many arms. Out of love, she created it a shell, so it could walk among humans, its beauty hidden to outsiders. Other Doctor Tezla's best work, that shell, that perfect, magnificent shell, one that would conquer worlds…_

_The voice behind the door was mechanic and monstrous, with the subtle luster of femininity. "I need a new shell, Doctor Tezla. I need a new, and better shell, and I need it tonight."_

_Tezla grinned a catlike grin, showing off almost inhumanly sharp canine teeth. "Dear Gelorum! The last body you had was my best-"_

"_And yet you have better," finished the voice in the shadows, "I know you, just like I know your brother. Well, I know him _now_." Was that a tinge of irony? A taste of regret? The voice had no emotions but rage, but fury, but cold detachment. And the voice was right. Gelorum was always right._

"_Fine, I do have something better… in stock, but I would be more willing to help if you didn't compare me to my brother. For one so desperate to change the world, he holds a lot of it back. I'm no hypocrite; I know to stay ahead of the market. I never pretended to be saving the earth whilst killing it. Do come in, dear Gelorum, and I will give you back the most beautiful shell." The other Doctor Tezla cackled her beastly cackle, as her monster entered the massive hall. "Come with me downstairs, and tell me, what happened to you? What happened to your plans?"_

"_There are always other plans, even when the Accelerons attempt to destroy my caged mind. We always have other plans. That is the reason for my urgency—I just got wind of a fly in my web, and it is the juiciest bluebottle."_

"_You always had a knack for the savage metaphor," the Other Doctor Tezla mused, "But tell me—this insect, is it that holy grail of vermin, the one bug the entire planet is being torn asunder over?" The Other Doctor Tezla opened up her workshop, a massive, cavernous room filled with cadavers and machines, joined into flesh, fake arms, computers, rust and blood. She licked her lips expectantly._

"_Not just this world, Doctor, but millions more. Universes will war, galaxies will be destroyed, and the Accelerons themselves may come down from their ivory tower for the return of this boy. And he is mine," Gelorum's voice sounded hungry. _

"_Well, then. I have just the body for you." Tezla giggled, as though she were pulling the legs off a spider. "Let's call it… Jenny, for now."_

"That was awesome." Tork stated. Banjee, Tork and Karma were still sitting in Tezla's car still, waiting for the police to lose their trail before getting back to the others.

"Eh," said Banjee in false modesty, "I've done better." Karma rolled her eyes. Banjee coughed, "So what's up with the gangs thing? I feel like I've been bounced into _Tokyo Drift_ meets _West Side Story_."

Tork sighed, "After racing got really mainstream a lot of people started street racing, and it was just a way of getting out your aggression. It all started as a kinda fun rivalry thing. Then things got a bit out of control—well, a lot out of control."

"People died."

"It stopped being fun."

Banjee looked thoughtful. "It's lucky you lot have me back then. I'm nothing but fun!" He put the car into reverse, and drove into the desert.

_Kadeem woke up again, drenched partially in a cold sweat. He needed sleep, but he didn't. He had no idea what his robot half needed. He stared out at the Drone's city again. It looked like a monster, made of shadows, and tinged in a sickly green light. He turned the other way, towards the real city. That city of grey and grey, of brown and brow, but real, with people, with humans. Between the two cities there was a shimmering tear, where the fabric of the Drones and the fabric of the Earth had been stitched together by some unbelievable force. Bridges crisscrossed the scar, making the area seem like a poorly cleaned surgical wound, stitched with a foul, rotting string. _

_The Drones had been gathering people. Always innocent looking, young children or women, or fresh-faced men with the weight of the world on their shoulders. Why, Kadeem couldn't guess, or at least didn't want to. He generally followed the prisoners a ways, but could think of nothing to do for them. _

_That morning, that Christmas morning, they brought in a special prisoner. Kadeem didn't gasp aloud, but every muscle in his body clenched. It was Vert._

**AN/ Mood whiplash, anyone? **

**Seriously though, I'm really sorry for being absent so long. I'll definitely try to get updates up, even weekly depending on my schedule. I hope this is a triumphant return, and I'm really really sorry for people who have waited and sent kind words. Thanks, sorry, other assorted apologies. There will be more updates!**


	8. Plans and Chicanery

**AN/ See? Updated on time. Ish.**

"Why are we alive?" Dan Dresden repeated Kurt's question, slightly sarcastically.

"By all accounts you really should have… died." Kurt explained awkwardly, as Dan poked the remains of the fire with his foot. "You say you hit a Drone car going 250. That's… that's certain death."

Dan shifted uneasily. He had always managed to ignore the impossibility of his survival in his own head, but now that they were back on earth, reality ensued. He really should have died, in that foggy, gloomy, empty realm, where it felt like something was always lurking behind that curtain of clouds. And yet he had survived, after which being dumped in the Junkyard. Then he had survived Drone attacks, landslides and explosions, all without really thinking about it, and now that he was thinking about it, he didn't know why. He didn't really _want_ to know why, but Kurt felt knowing was pertinent to knowing what was going on with the entire idea of Racing Realms, and Drones, and Accelerons. "I know I should have died." Dan sighed, "I should have died a dozen times. Alec too, and Banjee. But we're alive."

"So, what is keeping you alive?" Kurt mused. There was a long pause. After a while he murmured, "Molly missed you."

Dan kept his face carefully blank. "That's history. You think she's still thinking about us? Everyone's probably moved on. It's been what, two years?" He lied. Dresden turned back to the fire's embers, around which most of the group had gathered. The Japanese guy- Shirako?- was bobbing his head to a beat only he could hear, as Monkey and Porkchop (the two with the easiest names to remember) argued about how the engine of the Sweeper worked. Nolo and Alec were having an incredibly (irritatingly) earnest conversation, with Lani occasionally piping in. Taro had been given Stilte's journals to go over, and was being jealously regarded by Tezla. The Drone-look-a-like sparked furiously in a corner. Mark was eavesdropping on Kurt. They were a strange group, stretched out on the Nevada dirt, and curled in the shade provided by the Sweeper. "I wonder where Banjee and those other two are…"

Kurt yawned, "I dunno, but I need a coffee."

"Tell me about it. Espresso… double shot latte with brown sugar…" Dan murmured, fully aware of his hunger. He had been so long without food he had almost forgotten what it was like to eat, the bitter burst of flavor, sickly sweetness... His stomach growled audibly, and Markie sniggered. Kurt pretended not to notice. "We're a weird group, aren't we?" the older Wylde (obviously in a philosophical mood) said. "I wonder what we're going to do now that all this is over."

"Find Vert, duh." Said Markie flippantly.

"Apart from that Mark. How are we going to explain to the world that the last few years of our lives were just… eaten? We're probably all considered dead, honestly. So what are we going to do?"

"So you're Vert's friend?" Nolo was asking.

Lani sniggered, "They act like closer than twin brothers. I tell ya, being on a team with the two of them was hell itself. You know when guys complain about women having their own language? Those two speak in tongues."

"Don't mind Lani," Alec said, "She's just jealous because we wouldn't let her in on the gossip. Which was mostly about her, anyway." He shrugged, "But yeah, me and Vert have been best friends since forever. Vert's parents both worked all the time, so he was at my house a lot, since our moms were friends when we were little. He introduced me to surfing and adrenaline sports, and I made sure we got homework and chores done."

"I'd express shock at you being responsible, Alec, but compared to Vert…" Lani giggled slightly, and Alec grinned.

"Hey, just because we're surf rats doesn't mean our lives are entirely without merit."

Nolo laughed, "And anyway, I don't think street racers can complain about the value of other sports."

"Actually, I think as we've been racing through inter-dimensional realms I'd say it's only fair that we get to tease the rest of the world," Lani said.

"They're back," Taro remarked, without looking up. A dust blot on the horizon was all that was remarkable in the dull landscape.

"I wonder if they bought some gasoline. I think the Sweeper's engine can be converted-" Monkey began.

Porkchop interrupted, "That engine don't run on gasoline! It's alien, it's gonna run on _alien_ fuel."

"But I'm sure we can convert the engine…" And off they went again into a techno babble argument. It was a comforting background noise—everyone else had trailed off into silence, waiting for Nitrium to park. There was a certain ominous air that had fallen and nobody could explain it. The car screeched to a halt, and Banjee bounded from the front seat. "Guess what, guys!" He said, happily, "We're fugitives!" Blank looks, "No wait, don't say anything, let me explain."

"I think they're gonna need some coffee first," Karma interjected, gesturing to the back seat of the car. "We got food too. I doubt anyone will have much of an appetite after hearing what we've found out." So they unpacked the car, distributed the food, and ate in silence. Despite Karma's warnings and the mutual hunger, nobody really wanted to eat. Karma and Tork elected to put away the leftovers, since Banjee seemed to be happy to explain the situation to the group. Dan didn't want to beat about the bush, "So, what's going on?"

"Well," Banjee began with a relish, being the type of person who adores news, no matter its contents, "It turns out that we're all wanted by the police, for kidnapping and treason _slash_ espionage. I thought the treason charge was weird myself, but arguably the kidnapping is worse, seeing as we are supposed to have kidnapped the other Highway 35 racers." Banjee waved his hands, trying to quell the swell of angry and confused objections, "Okay, so I was worried when we figured this out—we were listening to the radio whilst we were waiting for the heat to die down. But then Karma pointed out that we know that the others are safe, since it's a kidnapping charge, and not a murder charge or anything. So Es—oh wait, most of you won't know what I'm talking about. Es was on my team in the world race. Anyway, she's probably fine, and so are the others, and we're all pretty fine too." At this point Banjee seemed to be trying to convince himself as much as anyone else.

"Anyway, the police were after us in town because some pointy haired teenager called the cops on us. So we drove away and hid for a bit, turned on the radio, tried to figure out what was going on. We heard about all of this—apparently most of us are part of the "Bubonic 12", which is an awesome name for a band, and we're the 'baddies', but so is Russia. So everyone in the US is out to get us. There are some really complicated issues going on, and they have something to do with the realms, so we need to keep working on the realms issue, even Doctor Tezla, even though he's kind of a jerk." Banjee realized he was getting off track again, and shifted back into a more reflective frame of mind, "So, uh, Doctor T, do you have another… base-like place?"

Tezla shifted an eyebrow, "_I_ do not, but I do know of another place with… appropriate facilities. Unfortunately, not only will it be some time before the place is prepared, we are without any technology to return to the realms."

"We'll hit that bridge when we get to it. What's important is that we have some sort of hub of communication, a place where we can group together and figure out what exactly is going on." Karma cut in.

Tezla coughed, "When I say "prepared", I mean at this moment it is uninhabitable. I can reconfigure it to our needs, but it will be some time."

"Well, then, we'll have to find somewhere else to stay, won't we?" Lani commented. Looking around at the blank faces, she continued, "We can't go home, or go where we'll be expected. People are looking for us. So we'll need some other place to stay…"

"Places." Dan said, "We can't stay in a group this big at the moment. It's too much of a target."

"B-but we only just got the gang back together!" Banjee objected.

"And we only just got back onto the Earth. I don't want to have to go into hiding," Alec complained.

"Well, you'll just have to get over it." Taro sighed, blunt as ever. "We need to move on to more pressing concerns. Where are we going to stay?"

There is a saying; 'A friend will help you hide, but a best friend will help you hide the body.' What it means is that there are some people who will trust you even if you become an axe-wielding maniac. To take the interpretation further, there are some friends who will talk you down from your insanity, and some who run away screaming for the police. Most people believe they have more of the former than the latter, but most people aren't pressed to find so-called 'true' friends. At that moment, however, our heroes were indeed pressed to find someone who would help them hide the metaphorical body. Prospects seemed bleak; there are few who would willingly hide 13 possible villains in their homes.

Tork broke the silence, "My foster-sister, Kelly… She's just in Houston, owns a nightclub, and she's the most trustworthy person I know."

"But—I agree with Dan. I don't think it's a good idea for us to all go to the same place," said Nolo. A few racers glared at him. "Listen," he continued, "If all of us get caught, we'll never be able to figure out what's going on, and then what'll we do? The world might end, maybe there'll be a war, and it'd be our fault for refusing to takes some of our eggs out of the basket."

"No, Banjee's right, we shouldn't split up," Lani argued, giving him a sharp look, "That's what _they_ want, and even if we don't know who _they _are, exactly, we still need to stick together. They're trying to divide us up! They know if we're in smaller groups, we aren't as strong."

"I agree with Lani," Banjee said (was that a tinge of smugness?).

"Me too," interjected Monkey, "If we do split up, how are we going to be able to help each other if the worst comes to the worst?"

"Or we could compromise." Karma said, "Just split the group in half. Then we're divided, but not entirely. There is still a support system, and a back up if half of us wind up in chains. We'd need another place to stay though…"

There was another pause. Kurt and Dan used the silence to exchange knowing looks; Kurt's glance was laced with apologies whilst Dan's seemed weary, but accepting. Kurt nodded, and, after getting slight nod of approval from Dresden, turned back to the group. "We could stay at… Molly's." He said, ominously.

"Really?" Mark asked, sniggering, "Even after-"

"We aren't going to talk about that," growled Dan.

"She owns a farm in the country, in Kansas I believe, and lives in a big house," Kurt steamrollered on, "And she wouldn't tell anyone about us."

"Is she really that trustworthy? You seem to have doubts…" Lani said.

Kurt hand-waved her concern away, "She's trustworthy, and she always hears me out. In any case, we really don't have any other options."

"So then…" A plan was drawn up. Shirako and Dan would go into town with Banjee's credit card (hopefully unmarred by any oversight, Banjee being dead) and would buy a couple of second hand cars. Using those cars Tork, Nolo, Shirako, Taro, Karma and Alec would go to Houston. Dan, Kurt, Monkey, Banjee, Porkchop, Mark and Lani (much to Nolo's displeasure) would drive on further, up to Kansas and Molly's place. The drive would take days, but safety was considered more necessary than comfort. Tezla was to drive up to the New Secret Base in Minnesota and set it up, so all could eventually meet up happily.

The conjecture went on as Mark speculated that at that point if nothing had gone terribly wrong Hell would have frozen over, and the Drones would be cast into icy wastes. Monkey continued by contemplating how Sparky was going to lead the Teku and Metal Maniacs in a massive fight against the Silencerz, leading to an epic guitar battle (added in by Alec). At that point, the meeting fell apart, as everyone took laughing guesses at what else could go wrong (or right).

It was also at that point that Dan Dresden and Kurt Wylde wandered away from the group, quietly hoping not to be spotted. Confident that they were out of earshot from the others, Kurt spoke, "Really Dan. She was way angrier at me."

"Kurt, a lot of stuff happened over those years, and all four of us share the blame. Me, I ran away. I ran away back to the realms, and only found out what happened to her and Markie after I checked the news at a whim."

"All of which is all our faults, and last I checked, she was still on speaking terms with me and Mark."

"Yeah," Dan scuffed his boot against the red earth, "Because neither of you ran away. I mean, you backed out early, kept quiet to not sully your golden reputation, and watched your brother go to jail, but at least you were still around. At least you were smart enough to back out when it made sense. At least you didn't—" he cut himself off, trying to regain his cool. The desert sun was a weak winter one, but still it beat against him. That was why he was feeling so emotional. The sun. It was the sun's fault.

They continued to walk in silence a ways, before Kurt said, "This will prove it to her then."

"Prove what?"

"Prove that you aren't a coward. You're going back, aren't you? Going in to right the wrongs, do the good deed, confront your daemons? You've stopped running away, and she'll see that."

"I'm only not running away because we have no other choice. It's either fight or flight, and we're choosing a weird mixture of both. I mean really, what are we going to tell her?" Dan laughed, eying a cuboid building rising up out of the desert haze. "We got hired by a mad scientist to race against evil robots on tracks in outer space?"

"It's the truth." Kurt shrugged, as they met the tarmac of Highway 35. They walked a while.

"Where it all started." Dan commented, "Aliens and wheels and 300 miles per hour."

"And money, and upstart surf rats, and 35 weird racers." Kurt continued.

"Pyramids."

"Ice monsters."

"Short cuts."

"The Cube."

They walked towards it in silence, both quietly agreeing that they had been walking towards the structure the entire time, even if they hadn't know it. The crunch of the earth was the only sound for a long time. The Cube seemed haunted. Once it had been full of life, a few weeks of being the center of the earth for racers. After they found out that Kurt was a spy, it lost some life. After the Drones had shot through every wall, it seemed dead. Mark Wylde and Tork's race through its walls (literally) had been desecration of a corpse. They ducked into the large room through one of the holes in the wall.

Dan opened his mouth, to say something, but Kurt shushed him, wide-eyed. He pulled Dan into the shadows, still staring at what seemed to be a heat-shimmer in the middle of the room. Then, out of nowhere, a driver clad in silver appeared. It moved its gloved hands up to a mirrored helmet, and pulled. The driver, a blond haired woman, continued speaking, now unblocked by the helmet's distortions. "—don't tell, nobody is gonna know. It's good to get out in the fresh air, you know. Stop being such a worry wart, I'm fine." She listened for a few minutes, evidently talking to someone on the other end of an earpiece, "Well, it's not here. It doesn't seem to be very coordinated yet. I'm worried. They were certain it would wind up here, resonance and all that," another pause, during which she adjusted her nose piercing, waiting for the other to finish, "If it's too unpredictable, another group could get it before we do. What if the Drones get it, and use it? What if they win? Or even—" she spat, "Those pathetic _street racers_. Has the group in Cali found anything?" Pause, her face fell, "Damn." She unfastened a zipped pocked and removed a cigarette and lighter, "Well," she said, lighting up, "We'll just have to send out for people to find it. Yeah, it's damned risky. But if people aren't going to be competent at the hub, us wingmen have to try 'risky'. How are the hostages holding up? Yeah, well, Tezla owes us. Yeah. Yeah." Another long drag, breath out. "Well, what should I do now? I already checked the ruins, there's nothing there." She dropped the cigarette, "Okay, Seattle, gotcha. Cobalt out."

The woman put her helmet back on, and stepped back into the shimmer. There was the faintest of sounds, like a car's ignition being lit at the bottom of a well. A strangely soft screech of tires, and the shimmer moved out of the cube, leaving only a cigarette butt behind. Minutes passed before either Kurt or Dan could breath.

"What was _that_ all about?"

_H. Stilte's Journal, Unknown Date, Unknown Time._

"_'But I don't want to go among mad people,' Alice remarked.__  
__'Oh, you can't help that,' said the Cat. 'We're all mad here. I'm mad. You're mad.'__  
__'How do you know I'm mad?' said Alice.__  
__'You must be," said the Cat. 'or you wouldn't have come here.'"_

**A/N: Blimey, this is a long chapter. Good? Bad? Weird? Probably weird, yes. I've mapped out where the story is going, so at least now we have some sort of tunnel. Anyway, I'm not sure if this is kocher, but I have no idea how else to reply to comments, sooo….**

**TheCrazyArtist: I always thought the Silencerz were the bad guys, right up until a couple of weeks ago. My brother was adamant that they were the 'goodies', because… he had his own logic on this point. Anyway, thanks!**

**JimmyCandlestick: It's really nice to see that you're still around too! ^_^ Yes, still alive, and glad to see other people in the Acceleracers fandom around.**

**Leavingyouforme: Yeah, my first few chapters were very over the top. Not that that's a bad thing, but seeing as the storyline has some very SERIOUS BUSINESS moments, I've been trying to keep mood whiplash to a minimum. Tezla's OOC-ness was mostly a result of me really not liking him. But that's unfair to the character, so hopefully he'll get more… Tezla-like in future. Aaand things aren't going to go well for Vert or Kadeem. Not because I don't like them, but probably because I do.**

**(Ramble-y authors note is ramble-y.) Next time! Our heroes discuss Dan and Kurt's experience, go their separate ways, impose upon old friends, meet new friends, and learn more about their rather miserable situation. Thanks for reading. **


	9. Long Journeys and Kerfuffling

**A/N: **

Neither Kurt nor Dan Dresden spoke much as they speedily jogged the distance back to the group. Both were analyzing the encounter with the Silencerz agent over and over. Of course, Kurt had to explain who the Silencerz were exactly first, but after that, they both kept their thoughts to themselves. Kurt was worried—there were Silencerz agents in the area, looking for something. Did that mean the agents would find the Sweeper, and 'remove' all the drivers? Were they going to get caught before they even left Nevada? Dan's worries were less concentrated on the proximity of the Silencerz, and more focused on what, exactly, the Silencerz were looking for. An unpredictable, unknown 'it', without identity or defining features. What was 'it', and why was it so important?

"Hey guys—what's up?" Greeted Banjee, ever jovial, "You look like you've seen a ghost."

"Worse," Kurt said, dramatically, "We saw a Silencer. In the Cube, as well."

Banjee cocked an eyebrow, "Remind me what those are again?"

"The maybe bad guys. We're not sure."

"And you saw one?" Banjee asked, attempting to stay casual, "Didn't you say they could turn invisible?"

"This one seemed to be breaking the rules. She wasn't wearing a helmet—probably because she was smoking. And she was talking to someone else, so we had no idea what half the conversation was," elaborated Kurt.

"They were looking for something," added Dan, "And they thought it would be here…"

"Hmm. You should probably talk to Tezla about that," Banjee said, "I mean, lord knows I have no love for the man, but he's our only expert on Silencerz and the weird stuff they do. So yeah, talk to him, maybe he can figure it out." The three began walking back towards the main group. "Oh, Porkchop, Lani and Shirako went off to try and find cars. They'll be gone for a few hours, mostly 'cause the nearest used car place is about 60 miles away. So we'll have to just not get into trouble in the meantime." He grinned.

"Huh."

They were only just in sight of the group but could already hear arguing. "Well, you're so far in the friend zone if someone hit you with a ball they'd get a six!"

"_I think you're getting cricket and baseball metaphors mixed up."_

"Estúpido! You just won't leave her alone! You're like some deranged… caterpillar bug-weasel!"

"_Honestly, I think correcting them at this point is pointless. Popcorn?"_

"Are they always like this?" asked Dan, exasperatedly.

Kurt shrugged, glancing over at Nolo and Monkey screaming at each other. "It's usually not this bad. I think Nolo has a lot of pent up aggression that has to go somewhere, and Monkey's fairly insecure. They both like Lani, so they argue." He sighed, "I hope we get back to racing soon. That way we can all work through our emotions constructively—"

"Your mother is a big turtle! Go n-ithe an cat thu, is go n-ithe an diabhal an cat!"

"—And not like this."

"Well I have both good news and bad news on that front," added in Tezla, who was working through some complex mathematical notes in the desert floor. "We will be able to race in the Realms again, if what I suspect to be true is true. Unfortunately, the process of rebooting our transdimensional portal system, and the creation of a new Acceledrome," he paused, calculating again, "May take from 6 months to 11 years."

There was a stifled discontent, which Alec broke through with an agonized, "11 years! _11 years?_ We might not be able to race in the Realms for _11 years_? What if Vert got stuck in some Realm somewhere? Or what if the Silencerz can access the Realms? Or what if there's some sort of invasion plan happening that we can't stop because we can't get into the realms?"

"The 11 years estimate is if we can't get another Wheel—or at least another hologram of the Wheel. If we cannot, I will have to construct a new Wheel from scratch." Tezla twiddled his thumbs, "On the other hand, getting a copy of the Wheel's current coordinates would be an act of _deus ex machina._ A very low possibility of success."

Viceroy city was not a great city to live in. For one thing, it was a city that never slept, or stopped trying to sell you stuff. Shirako was tired of the bustle before he had taken two steps out of Tezla's car. Porkchop was yelling at him (again) but the volume of his music drowned out pretty much everything. They were walking towards a used car lot that had a lax background check policy. Nobody was very fond of the idea, but it was the best plan that anyone had. Shirako watched Lani and Porkchop go ahead, and then surreptitiously meandered off to find an Internet café.

He sat down and ordered a drink (hot chocolate, but coffee if anyone asked), groaning inwardly at the blaring Christmas music that was somehow louder than his own tunes. _Low battery. Great._

Shirako wasn't an introvert, but people were complicated. It was easier to pay attention to the repetitive beat than focus on what people were saying, how they were saying it, putting it in context, checking for sarcasm, analyzing the half-dozen hidden meanings, and then replying in a way unlikely to cause offense. Racing was similarly soothing: the Realms were crazy, but they never pretended not to be. Then there was the internet, an entirely different kettle of fish. Speaking of which…

_1084 unread messages? I guess that's what happens if you drop off the web for a couple of months._

From: Emille Sen Subject: Where are you?

From: zoomzoom92 Subject: wat up?

From: Shermansstand Mailing List Subject: Would like your collaboration on a project…

Shirako liked his internet friends. They were faceless, voiceless, and normal, safely on the other end of a series of tubes. Easily relegated off to one side. Saddening, that sense of priority, but trying to save the world was more important than being a geek. If the racers were being tracked, Shirako knew, so were their friends, both online and off. It would be safer to delete them from his life.

_Select all. Dele- wait._

From: Vert Wheeler Subject: [No subject]

_Received 11 hours ago._

"What." Shirako said aloud. Nobody could hear him over the Christmas music.

Open.

Numbers.

It was bizarre was that it had no subject or text, just a string of numbers. Shirako would've had half a mind to trash the message as spam, but stopped himself. After the last few numbers trailed off, there was a sound file embedded in the email. Praying that the computer wouldn't catch a virus, Shirako downloaded the sound byte, plugged in his headphones and pressed play. Someone male screamed something incomprehensible, static buzzed; there was a screech of tires. Then the man swore several times, as another wave of static burst through. A car door was opened, and the microphone picked up the howling of the wind as footsteps crunched away. The sound cut out, and there was silence for about six seconds. Then a _very_ creepy voice said "Come play soon."

Shirako stared at the screen for a good ten minutes, petrified. He leaned across to his neighbor, and quietly asked, "Um, excuse me, could I borrow your USB cable for a moment?"

The woman laughed warmly, "Of course. Here." She passed him the cable, and he plugged it into the computer, then into his Mp3 player, downloading the sound file quickly.

"Thank you," he smiled, though inside he was still a bit shell-shocked by the sound file. Even if it was creepy and weird it was a connection to Vert, and Vert had been the last person seen with the wheel of power… Thinking quickly he printed off the message, paid for his drink (hot chocolate), and left.

"Tvelve hun-dred dollerss for both." Crazy Harry was a fat man squeezed into a small suit, with an air of sleaze and tobacco constantly surrounding him. His eyes were constantly squinted as though enveloped by layers of fat, and a layer of sweat greased him. "Zart is mah final offuh." The accent was hard to place, mixing south London with a bit of Eastern Europe and a lot of Nevada. Occasionally, it'd adventure into Asian territory or moonlight as Australian. He was still grinning. "Ah dunno why yer fiiine yung pepple want thess pieces of _junk_—" he spat, "and Ah don' relah care. Ah do need tha' money, tho."

Lani was up to her arms in the hood of one of the cars. It was some sort of Ford-ian people carrier, rusted, green, with a flat tire and enough engine problems to make a high school mechanic blush. Porkchop was going over the other vehicles engine. It was a white van, the kind you only see in public service announcements and dark comedies, rusted, with black duct-tape covering the holes in the windows and keeping the passenger door shut. The engine was similarly shot. Lani caught the large southerners eye, and turned to Harry. "Can my friend and I talk it over here privately for a moment?"

"Bu' of cawse, ma'am." Crazy Harry replied, wiping his red face of sweat, "Ah'm open 24 awers a day, so y'all take all the tahm yer laik."

"Thanks," Lani smiled, falsely, as Harry walked back to the grey shack that served as his office. Her expression dropped the second the man left her sight, "There is no way we're buying both of these for $1200. That's daylight robbery."

"If tha' van makes it ta Vegas wi'out breaking down, ah'll eat ma momma. And she's been dead fo' four years," Porkchop commented, wrinkling his nose at the poorly designed cars. "Mebbeh if we had a garage an' some tools, we coul' do sommat."

"Well, we wont get anything useful until we set ourselves back up. Since we need the cars to do that." Lani sighed, "Maybe we should just buy them and fix them up on the go."

Shirako found Harry's Hotspot (Car sales) around two hours after leaving the Net Café. It was a flat unused lot, with some rundown cars and rundown buildings, surrounded by a chain link fence topped with barbed wire. The employees seemed to be rundown too, and Shirako wondered what they had done to end up working at such a dead end. Two were replacing the lot's cardboard sign as he approached. Harry's name was scrawled on the cardboard with a sharpie. It was at this point that Shirako's headphones gave out entirely, and he wondered whether he had wandered onto the set of _The Silence of the Lambs_. Before he could think to ponder where Lani and Porkchop were, he heard the yelling.

"These cars aren't worth thirty cents! Now you're asking for 30,000 dollars! Do you think we're just giving away money to anyone who asks?" Lani's voice was shrill and carried across the lot comparatively well, but it paled in comparison with Porkchop's booming rage.

"Why I ought'a take one o' these cars and—"

Harry interrupted the painful sounding threat by raising the price, "If you threa'en, you not liak it, the price es now $33,000."

Shirako leaned on the dirtier car and caught Lani's eye. He scratched a 'V' in the mud coating the people carrier's windshield and arched a meaningful eyebrow. Lani nudged Porkchop, who quieted down, and nodded at Crazy Harry. "Fine, we'll take them."

They signed through the paperwork quickly, trying to ignore Crazy Harry's gold plated grin, and paid.

"Guht-bye, friends!" Crazy Harry yelled, as Lani attempted to start the van's engine. Porkchop managed to kick the people carrier into gear after a couple of tries, and gave Lani a mock-salute as he drove out of the lot. The engine of her own 'car' turned over a couple of times, before beginning a choked start. "Car in the loosest sense of the word," Lani muttered darkly, driving back into the city. "So—Vert?"

Shirako, who was riding shotgun, twiddled his thumbs nervously. "I got an email from Vert's address. It was… a lot of numbers, and this sound message." He stopped again, thinking, "I'd show you the sound message thing, but I'm out of batteries. I printed out the email though. And the last words of the message said "Come play soon.""

Lani shivered slightly, "Any idea what _that_ could mean?"

"None." Shirako replied, looking out the window. They were quiet during the ride back to Nitrium, and as Shirako hopped out of the van he avoided Lani's gaze. Nitrium was a car high tech enough to allow Mp3 players to be plugged into it. He let it charge, too nervous to turn it on. Eerie silence filled his car for the first time in several years. Shirako didn't like silence, the quiet made it too hard to think. At that moment there was too much to think about, and so he welcomed the distraction of the silence and the road.

_Excerpt: H. Stilte's Journal #3_

_qui tollis peccáta mundi, miserére nobis;_

_qui tollis peccáta mundi, súscipe deprecatiónem nostram._

_(Notes: These words have been written repeatedly in deceptively neat handwriting over about 20 pages within the notebooks. The phrase is in Medieval Latin, and a prominent chorus in catholic masses. The best translation found would be "Thou that takest away the sins of the world, have mercy upon us. Thou that takes away the sins of the world, receive our prayer." The meaning seems to be symbolic in Stilte's mind, but is incomprehensible currently, given the state of the rest of his notes. –Dr. P. Tezla, 12/25.)_

Several seconds of non-existent cricket chirping passed after Shirako shared his discovery with the other racers. Alec was the one to break the silence, "What _was_ that? And—" he flailed uselessly in the air, as if cursing an unseen god, and continued in near hysterics, "Why doesn't anything make sense anymore? Absolutely _everything_ needs to be terrifying and confusing! Why can't we get some answers?"

"Alec, there's no need for panic," Dan interrupted calmly, "We'll figure out—"

"What was there to figure out on that recording? Someone is in major trouble, and someone else is mocking us—_mocking us_, threatening us and being generally creepy! I've spent the last two years stuck in some alien-designed netherworld terrified out of my wits by evil robots only to come back and find most of my friends kidnapped, and the rest either on the run, stuck in an unknown location or turned into edead monster zombie cyborg things. Honestly? I think I'm allowed to panic _just a little bit._"

"Oh yes, panic, go ahead," said Banjee, a little spitefully, "It's not like the rest of us are going through exactly the same thing or anything."

"Banjee…" Lani said, trying to talk the tempers down, "Alec, come on."

It was after Nolo and Monkey joined the argument, Lani later mused, that everything went downhill very quickly. Again, not to be repetitive, one cannot have a large group of stressed, miserable, hungry people stuck in a desert for very long before they start bickering. Karma sighed heavily, "Oh, for _goodness _sakes."

"Oi!" Tork yelled, "Metal Maniacs. Shut. Up." He glanced at Nolo, "Please reel in your teammates. Currently we have a lot more to worry about at the moment."

Nolo bit down a remark, and signaled for Kurt back away. Kurt hadn't been arguing as irrationally as most of the racers, but when your leader went off on a tangent, you followed. Soon everyone had stopped yet again.

"We should leave. Now." Karma put forward curtly, "If we stay together for much longer in this _damned_ desert one of us is going to go utterly insane."

"Alright, then…" Nolo trailed off. For all the bickering, few members of the group really wanted to split up. It felt like a plan from a horror movie, _"let's split up, gang"_, and then the evil monsters pick the heroes off one by one.

Goodbyes were a muted affair. The group emptied the Sweeper of all it's useful components and left it, another empty shell in the desert. Tezla left first, staring into the distance as he took Nitrium and pointed it north. Karma and Kurt figured out the directions, and made a final inspection of the cars. "We'll be going the same way up until Salt Lake City," Kurt announced, "Then we split off. Time to load up, guys."

"I'll start driving if you take over in a couple of hours," Karma said to Taro, who nodded and took shotgun. It was late afternoon as they at last loaded into the cars, ready to leave. "Call us when you get there. No use being unsafe," Grinned Banjee, though he seemed a little bit out of it. He was squished between Porkchop and Mark in the middle of the people carrier, and was finding it difficult to move, let alone wave goodbye. And with that, they drove off into the reddening sky.

_Excerpt: H. Stilte's Journal #3_

_Alone we can do so little; together we can do so much.—Helen_

_(Notes: I find it odd that H. Stilte would have a quote from Helen Keller in his notebook, particularly as he is a noted misogynist, but further inspection of the page shows that he seems to believe that Helen Keller was also Helen of Troy, and the repeated misspellings of her name as "Hell-en" make me suspicious that he believed she was some sort of succubus. Why he chose this quote, even in this belief, is again beyond me. – Dr. P. Tezla, 12/25)_

"Heh, I cannot believe that they're all asleep already," commented Karma, adjusting the rear view mirror. "Although it is nice to have some quiet around here." Taro grunted a reply, staring at the horizon lost in thought. Karma, while intuitive, found Taro difficult to read. It was both fascinating and frustrating. She shrugged he noncommittal reply off, and returned to her own musings. There was certainly enough material to keep anyone occupied for a while. There were the maybe-good, maybe-bad Silencerz, the ambiguously out of the way Accelerons, the insane realms and the definitely bad Drones to think about, all swirled around in a pot of confusion. An hour and a half of driving in complete silence and she still hadn't figured anything out. There were too many enigmas, and every logical pathway just ended in more questions, as though she were trying to open a box with the key on the inside. She said as much to Taro, and added, "What we really need is a skeleton key. Next time we see Tezla he is giving us some answers." Taro shrugged noncommittally, which was frustrating again.

The people carrier holding the rest of the group turned right, and she followed, ignoring the temptation to pass them and make a race out of it. There were times for racing, and it was not one of those times. Particularly since the engine of the van kept rattling angrily. "Are you alright?" Karma asked, "You seem even more uncommunicative than usual, and that's saying something."

"Nuh," Taro said again, "Just thinking."

"You're going to have to talk to me. I'm already drowsy, and the quiet just makes me want to sleep."

"I could drive."

"Or you could talk to me."

Taro grinned, just a little bit. Karma was stubborn, and used to getting what she wanted. "Fine, fine. I was thinking about the Accelerons. For example; why would a race of hyper-intelligent beings create a racing track?"

"I've been asking that question since I found out Highway 35 existed," Karma said, "But do go on."

"I only have two conclusions, that they were either really bored, or… well, that they were using it to solve wars."

"Can you explain your reasoning for the second one?" Karma asked, adjusting the rear view mirror again.

Taro sighed, "Well, we don't know what the other alien species are like, but we do know they exist, otherwise the realms would only be accessible by Accelerons."

"That was very nearly a pun, you know."

"… Anyway, instead it is open to our planet, but only since we have reached a technological point where we can travel into space. We get prizes, and we meet the Accelerons at the end. Maybe we're supposed to race against other aliens, but for one reason or another they aren't around anymore. I dunno…" Taro trailed off, ineloquently, "It seems a lot clearer in my head."

"I understand what you're getting at though," grinned Karma, "I mean, there has to be a reason, right?"

The other vehicle had fallen into a similar comfortable silence. Kurt was currently driving, Dan in shotgun, and Banjee leaning forward between the seats. The rest of the beaten up people carrier (dubbed "The Junker" by Banjee)'s passengers had fallen into a rhythmic sleep, most likely brought on by sitting on comfortable seats. Kurt glanced over his shoulder and moved into the middle lane, careful to make sure Karma followed. He turned back to the conversation, "So from what you're telling me, everything that got destroyed in a Realm, or lost, that didn't 'belong there', ended up in the Junkyard."

Dan replied, "That's what it seemed like."

"I wonder if it has anything to do with the Junkyard _Realm_ we drove through a couple of weeks ago. It was rusty, red skies, red earth, the works…"

"Doesn't sound like where we were," Banjee said, "The Junkyard didn't look like a Junkyard, just a bunch of stuff piled up. It was all eerily neat and organized, except the sky looked like…" He motioned in the air, trying to find words, "Oil and water and vinaigrette run through a photoshop filter. Kind of."

"_I_ wonder why the Junkyard even exists in the first place. The Accelerons were all about winning. Why would they want to keep the losers?" Asked Dan.

"Ouch, Dan, I'm injured," mocked Banjee, gripping his chest dramatically.

Mark stirred slightly from his sleep, and managed to slur, "Quiet you guys, can't a guy get some sleep around here, jeez…"

Banjee grimaced, "_Pesaroso_, _apesadumbrado_, Markie." He turned back to the other awake passengers, "But I see your point," he continued, voice a lot more hushed, "Especially when you consider all the death traps in the Realms themselves."

"Maybe they're just trying to give us some semblance of danger, but not really danger itself, like skydiving."

"Have you ever _been_ skydiving, Dan?" Kurt asked, incredulously.

Dan sniggered, "We went for your birthday a couple of years ago, don't you remember?"

"I've been trying to block it from my memory. You forced me into it," Kurt replied, "And it was _terrifying_." He steered the car onto the center lane of the eerily empty highway, "But what about if you're already… eaten or something?"

"I hit a drone at over 200 miles per hour, and I was fine." Dan commented, "and Banjee drove into a swamp whilst being shot at by drones—"

"I couldn't see the edge!"

"-And he was fine." Dan continued, undeterred.

"_Its not like I could see anything in that realm, and anyway, Tezla lied about the directions._" Banjee muttered beneath his breath.

"What about Alec?"

Banjee shrugged, "No clue, he refuses to talk about it. We know it was in the Storm Realm though."

"Did you guys get your cars brought with you?" Kurt asked.

"I'm glad I'm not the only one who noticed that. Weird, isn't it. Other cars were brought to the Junkyard, but not our own. Almost as if…" Dan trailed off, a passing streetlight illuminating his shocked face.

"As if what?"

"As if someone wanted to leave you clues."

The beaten up white van was almost out of fuel, and that alone was enough to make Karma curse. "There must be a hole in the engine. I can't believe we have to drive these clunkers."

"'The Clunker' is a good name for this car, really." Nolo yawned, stretching awake from his nap. "Where are we?"

"About ten miles from the outskirts of Salt Lake City. We still have a ways to go. Can you wake Alec up? He needs to go buy food and fuel. The rest of us will only cause problems."

"Why- oh yes, the Bubonic 12. Superb."

Karma guided the sputtering van into a well-lit 76, and parked. The car groaned. "You should keep the door open, Alec. It smells very alive in here."

"Ew, Karma." Alec said, grinning, and hopping out of the van. "Do you guys want coffee or anything?"

"If they didn't, I'd be very surprised," Nolo replied, yawning.

As Alec entered the 76, the people carrier pulled up. "You guys need help?" Called Dan.

"Nah, we're good. You guys should keep moving. We've got enough ground to cover without having to stop every five minutes for this stupid van."

"Alright, we'll call you when we get there. Good luck."

"Thanks," Karma replied, slipping out of the van, "I think we'll need it. Taro, can you grab some of those pipes we salvaged from the Sweeper? And some of Monkey's tools? There's a doll."

"The sight of a woman up to her arms in an engine is ever a beautiful one," sighed Banjee, happily.

"And one you will never be able to see again if Karma catches you talking like that. Her personality is… prickly, to say the least." Grinned Kurt, "In any case, you wouldn't stand a chance. She and Taro are distracting each other."

"Oh they _are_, are they? I thought Lani and Taro were dating."

"Lani says he didn't communicate enough."

"Well, she's right." Banjee sighed, "I guess I'll have to seduce Lani then."

Dan laughed aloud, and Kurt snorted, "Better not let Monkey or Nolo hear you say that, they'd shred you to bits."

"Dios mio, I'm not allowed to seduce _anyone_ around here. If I flirt with you will you get off my back?" Banjee asked, his apparently sincere façade breaking down at the sight of Kurts 'not-amused' expression.

"You're not funny, Banjee." Kurt said, and Dan laughed louder.

Alec exited the 76 with a couple of shopping bags in one hand and a holder filled with coffee in the other. "How goes it?" he asked Karma and Taro, who were glaring at the engine, apparently willing it to catch on fire. "Ouch, that well?"

"If this thing gets us to Austin it'll be a flipping miracle. Coffee me." Karma stated, grabbing the beverage.

"I'll drive," Taro said, as Karma slammed the hood down shut.

Nolo was still awake, drumming his fingers on his knees. With a look of realization on his face, Alec swiftly grabbed something out of the convenience store bag. "I got a couple of newspapers so we can figure out what's going on. Nolo, you can read in a moving car, right?"

"Yeah, pass them."

Alec did so, then hopped back into the car, and resumed his sleeping position, curled up in his chair like a cat.

"Time to go," Karma said, starting the engine on the third try.

"BUBONIC 12 SEARCH DEEPENS:

Washington D.C; The search for the terrorist group known as "The Bubonic 12" as at an all time priority, White House spokesperson Ari Valentine (58) announced yesterday. "We are making this the top of our bucket list. These people will not get away with the capture of more than 40 innocents from around the globe. This administration will not rest until the members of this group are imprisoned." "The Bubonic 12", a group of twelve former street racers, all with serious offenses in their backgrounds, have been on the run for a number of months. In that time they have kidnapped 40 and killed more than 100 people from varying countries, though focused on America. "We have released the names and photos to all newspapers in an attempt to catch these villains," said Secretary of State Ulrich Smith, "These people are enemies of freedom and should be avoided at all costs. If you even think you have seen a member of this group, call the police."

Some of the more worrying names involved with the Bubonic 12's crime spree are that of Mark and Kurt Wylde. Kurt Wylde is best known as the Grand Prix winner, and Mark as the younger brother who, two years ago, was imprisoned for industrial espionage. Going through the list, other familiar names appear. One major offender is the well-known millionaire Taro Kitano, who is perhaps best remembered as the man who skied down Mt. Everest—twice.

Each of these people is to be presumed armed and dangerous. Updates will be made available as is released. –AP."

Nolo wasn't quite sure he had read the article correctly the first time, and so repeated it aloud to make certain. Eventually he handed it to Karma, who verified that, yes, each of them (excepting Banjee, Dan and Alec) had been named as terrorists by the newspaper, and as villains. Still not entirely convinced, Nolo handed the paper to Alec, who batted it away as though it were a disease.

"I don't want to think about that right now Nolo. Leave me alone."

"Fine."

The People Carrier managed to get to Kansas within 25 hours, all of which was continuous driving. There were few arguments, and even the conversations died down after Nolo had given them a call. The Hispanic Teku had rapidly explained everything about the situation, which was bad. Not just bad, but worsening by the minute. As well as that, Kurt pointed out; the article was proof that the Silencerz didn't have Vert.

"What do you mean?" asked Nolo from over the phone, "How is that definitive?"

"Well, Vert's name is one of the twelve listed in the article. If we're assuming the Silencerz are a government entity, which they are, then why would they be looking for someone they already have?"

Nolo was silent for a few seconds, "Maybe they want to confuse us."

"I don't think they give us that much credit, Nolo," Commented Dan, "'Filthy street rats', remember? Filthy street rats with no cars for that matter. And we're already confused, there's no need for them to put themselves behind in trying to find Vert if they think they can catch him using America's Most Wanted."

Another pause, "That makes sense. Are you lot doing alright?"

"We're doing fine. Have to pull over for gas at some point, but apart from that, the engine is working out fine." There was an expectant moment as everyone within the people carrier waited patiently for the vehicle's engine to prove Kurt wrong. Nothing happened. Kurt continued, slightly smug, "We'll be in Kansas tomorrow most likely. How are you guys?"

"We've had to pull off the road three times already. Probably have to get another car somewhere, soon. Call us when you're settled in, I have to explain what you just told me to these guys."

"I don't envy you, Nolo. Later."

"Adios."

And so, the car was plunged into an awkward semi-silence from the minute Dan shut the phone's lid. Not only were they evil terrorists in the eyes of the law as dictated by a shady government group, but also they had lost track of their best chance against the various shady forces. Things were looking grim. Dan felt like things were grimmer. There were so many bad things to think about and focus on, but in the end his mind always slid back to Molly.

_Molly_… Though he and she had always insisted to the rest of the world that their relationship was purely professional, maybe with a small amount of friends with benefits mixed in, it had been hopeless to really cover up emotions. It was also hopeless to cover up the damage done to their relationship by the combined fury of the mafia and the jail time after Dan had pulled out of the deal. When Molly was angry, you knew it, and she held onto a grudge like nothing else.

He had always hated her a bit, too.

Kurt glanced at his friend, as though reading his thoughts. "Molly can forgive, you know. She's not a horrifying monstrous harpy."

"Really." Dan replied, the short word dripping with sarcasm.

"I was the person who convinced everyone that going into a business deal with the Mafia was a great idea in the first place."

"Yes, I know." Dan's tone was still one of level indignation.

"We're trying to save the world. That'll make up for any former discrepancies, right?"

"She lost a leg, Kurt. I think she wants to kill me. Slowly. With fire."

Kurt turned onto a dirt road, almost instinctively. "Well, we're about half an hour away now, so I guess we'll find out."

It was about midday as they pulled up the long dirt road onto a massive farm. "She's going to kill me." Dan repeated.

"Right now I'm picturing Molly as a thousand foot tall dinosaur made of fire. What can she be like to have such an effect on the pair of you?" commented Banjee.

"She's a biker chick and a pirate. It's the most terrifying combination known to man. Plus, she's terrifying when she's angry and several inches taller than me. And it's my fault she's down one leg. I'm doomed."

"Well, too late now." Kurt added unhelpfully, parking the Junker by the glowing light of the farmhouse. He was just getting out of the vehicle, when his eyes were drawn to a group of what seemed to be motorcycles parked by a barn in the distance. "Oh, great."

"What is it?" Asked Banjee, a little worried.

"The Pirates are here," Markie grinned, stepping out of the car, "Now lets go talk to Molly."

**AN/ Okay, yes, I did say they were going to meet their old friends in this chapter but it's long enough already without all that, for goodness sakes. This, unfortunately, means what I thought was going to be a couple of chapters until we find out what happened with Vert and Kadeem is now expanded to about four or five chapters. But I haven't forgotten about them, honest! It's just me trying to be suspenseful! XD**

**And thanks for all the comments. I'm not giving up on this, this time. Glad to see this fandom hasn't been completely abandoned. :3**

**Next time: We actually do meet old and new friends, a lot of people get drunk, and our Heroes acquire some shocking news.**


	10. Arrivals and News

**AN/ Aight, new chapter. And as a recommended background song for it? "Creeps Me Out" by Ima Robot and "The Kids Don't Stand a Chance" by Vampire Weekend. Yes, this is the indie music chapter. **

**Also in this chapter? Ellipses abuse. Enjoy!**

[6 Years Ago]

"That's the wrong answer."

"No it's not! I checked it a dozen times," the blond moaned, glaring at his paper. Vert shifted in his seat, back to the warm California sun, and began searching through the calculations, intent on finding his mistake.

"… Vert, you didn't carry the one," Alec sniggered, an air of teasing superiority in his voice. He stretched out on the wicker couch, shifting into a laying down position. Vert stuck his tongue out in reply, and was rewarded by Alec's toes in his face.

"Dude!" Vert whined, "I'm trying to concentrate."

Alec snorted, continuing to prod Vert in the side of the head with his toes, "I'm trying to figure out what type of person does homework on a Saturday." He paused for a moment, and then thoughtfully added, "Particularly warm, gorgeous Saturdays."

"You don't have to be here, you know."

"Yes I do, it's my house."

"Pfft, I'm here almost as much as you are."

Alec grinned, "Alright, maybe I'm just here because I don't want to see my poor friend suffer from the horror of Algebra all alone." He sat back up, leaning forward, "Flip the symbol. You divided by a negative."

"Argh, why is this so difficult?" Vert pouted.

"It's not, really, you just always over think the questions and stuff. Just relax. Which is what we should be doing right now." Alec gestured to the window, "The Pacific is calling to us! It's saying, "Algebra is boring. Put off until tomorrow what you can do today.""

"I can't, Alec…"

""Come surf on me, it's still sunny…""

"Alec, I promised dad I'd get my act together."

Alec almost recoiled at the mention of his best friend's father, with whom he shared a mutual dislike. As far as Alec was concerned, the Woods were Vert's real family. Major Wheeler just happened to be related to him. "You try, and that's enough. Come on, it's a really nice day. We can get my Mom to help us with this later."

"Your Mom'll only be helping me," Vert grumbled, "You _get _this stuff." He sighed, "I just want to do the right thing." And Alec knew what was at the core of his dislike of Major Wheeler, that scene that ran through his head every time Vert was down, that time when they were walking home from school and he had sent Vert back to an house alone, a house that they hadn't known was empty until Vert called Alec sobbing... Alec shook his head, trying to dispel the dark thoughts.

"_Vert_," Alec said, exasperated, "You don't have to be the perfect genius son your dad thinks he deserves. You don't have to be anyone's MVP, and you certainly don't need to prove anything. You're awesome. Get it together. You try and you get your work in on time, except when you're a ditz about it, but you know, other than that, you do good. Now come surf with me."

* * *

_Excerpt: H. Stilte's Journal #4_

_Who can hope to be safe? Who sufficiently cautious?_

_Guard himself as he may, every moment is an ambush._

_-Horace._

_(Notes: This was written in Latin, crossed out, then written several times in German, Danish(?) and English, always in the familiar spiral pattern. Why? It is hard to say. – Dr. P. Tezla, 12/28)_

_

* * *

_

"Theree t'ousand dollars," said a man who had more sunflower seeds in his mouth than common sense in his head. Alec glanced at the slightly less hideous looking and yet somehow more suspicious car that was being presented. Out of all the seedy (forgive the pun) offers he had received in Salt Lake City, it was possibly the best. Yes, the car was still to be consigned to the scrap heap ASAP, but it seemed usable, and had enough room for the entire group to be comfortable. Alec sighed, glancing over the engine again. He knew engines, yes, but one would have to be an expert to catch every mistake. Unfortunately, the more expert engineers weren't available, so he tried to make do. Concentrating was difficult—he still felt tired and hungry, and hearing people other than Dan and Banjee continued to bewilder his thoughts.

On top of that he was distracted. Did the car have a catalytic converter? No, it was too old. Was it? What was it? _A spider. He absentmindedly crushed the arachnid with his thumb, squish._ What had happened over the last two years? He had hit 18 in the Junkyard at some point, but there was no way to measure time, no way to calculate days. Alec sighed. In the real world he was an adult. He barely felt like one, though.

"Ahem?" The car salesman interrupted his thoughts, spitting the sunflower seeds onto the ground and reminding Alec of an unkempt camel. The man's nostrils twitched, "So about that deal…"

"I'll take it." Alec said, drearily. The rest of "Team Junker" was waiting outside the city, by the $17,000 dollar corpse of the van. He had been sent into the city alone to scout out a new vehicle, and had wandered around for hours before finding anything suitable. His credit card didn't seem to be tagged, or whatever it was the FBI used to track people down, and nobody was out to arrest him. He shuddered. If he, Dan and Banjee weren't being chased at that moment, it wouldn't be long before someone figured out that they had returned. The Californian couldn't bear the thought of his mother 'discovering' that after two years of disappearance he had become the cohort of terrorists.

He signed the cheque, and the salesman gripped it hastily, informing Alec that the car would be ready in an hour. Alec groaned inwardly, but nodded, left the lot, and walked out into the city.

His little brother would barely be in 6th grade. What would happen to him, if 'big brother' were considered a monster? Would it be his fault if his little brother were bullied or murdered by a crazy vengeful patriot? Alec shivered, rubbing his bristled arms. As he moved out of the sleazier areas, the night got darker and darker, as if to announce that the richer citizens could afford to close all their shops come Christmas. The dark underbelly writhed with life even on a cold night that was supposed to be a vacation. But then…

Alec was so far off in thought he didn't notice his name being called until Nolo was barely a foot away from him. "Alec!"

"Uh, wha?" replied Alec, stifling a yawn. He frowned in confusion, "What are you doing here Nolo?"

"You've been gone for 6 hours." Nolo growled, angrily, "And you haven't checked in with anyone. We were worried you'd been kidnapped!"

Alec shrugged, "Well I haven't been kidnapped. I've been wandering around looking for a car. We knew it wasn't going to be an easy job."

"You still need to be careful!"

"I'm an _adult_, Nolo, and you don't even know me. I'm doing you all a favor—I'm doing the whole world a favor. I've almost had enough of this crazy, and I'd pack up and go home tomorrow if I could."

"Then why don't you?" Nolo's face was interesting, and had Alec been able to see his expression in all its detail, the argument would most likely have been more muted. The rage visible in Nolo's body language found a solid counterpart with the hurt in his eyes. The Teku leader had been worried, for an admittedly good reason. He wanted to protect not only his team, but also those on the periphery of those who he considered family. Compounding this was the guilt Nolo felt letting his family down, and letting Tone get into that car on the fateful day he crashed, and letting Vert get lost.

Alec vocalized Nolo's own worries. "Why do you think?"

The two young men glared at each other in a moment of silent tension. Then, as though washing himself of the issue, Alec turned back towards the car lot. Nolo let him go, and then, inexplicably miserable, walked towards the outskirts of the city.

* * *

The woman who answered the farmhouse door was no farmer. Her hair was shaved into a crew cut, and she had so many piercings it was a wonder that she didn't attract every magnet in existence. As she glared at the Wyldes, the woman took a long draw from a foul-smelling cigarette. Banjee shot Kurt a look, as if to ask "_Molly?" _ Kurt shook his head, as the female at the door looked back into the house.

"Molly!" she snarled, as though she were transforming into an angry dog, "It's _Kurt._"

Whoever was in the house had evidently given the group the go-ahead, for the woman glared back at them. "Come on in then."

Kurt's expression was that of a soldier preparing for a particularly violent battle, as he raised his shoulders and stepped through the doorframe. He was followed by Mark (or Wylde, or Markie, none of the names really suited him anymore,) whose metal arm uncomfortably clanged against the jutting farm door. Banjee couldn't imagine the younger Wylde's expression, but felt uncomfortable staring at his slightly hunched shoulders, as though he were trying to hide inside himself. Banjee glanced nodded to the others, and then gave the reserved Dresden a slight shove.

The room was a large kitchen, with a dining area added on, fluorescent lights, and just enough clutter to be friendly. Standing to the right of the door besides a large rusty refrigerator stood the woman who had let them in. She was stocky and short, with spiky orange hair and a hoard of tattoos, leaning against the kitchen counter whilst glaring. Across from her another woman sat on a cabinet, seemingly lost in thought and uninterested by the newcomers. Her dark skin contrasted with her neon green clothes, as she stared, her eyebrows furrowed in thought. There were two more women in the room—one comparatively young, skinny, tanned, with untamed blond hair and a nose that looked like a beak. She gave Banjee a slight grin as he entered, as if to say, "What can you do?"

The fourth woman was about two inches from Kurt's nose, muttering in a cold rage. She was presumably Molly. In her forties, plain, narrow eyes, with brown hair, and a glint of metal where her ankle should have been. She aimed at Kurt a selection of angry words; then she turned around and began walking towards a blistered door the color of dead trees. Kurt motioned to Markie and Dresden, and the three followed her.

The kitchen fell into quiet, the constant _whup whup whup_ of the fan the only sound. Lani nervously fingered her gloves, picking at a loose string of nylon. Monkey was equally twitchy, and Porkchop stood awkwardly, staring at his shoes. The ginger-haired woman was still glaring at them, and was that a flicker of recognition in her eyes? Banjee sat at the kitchen table, and grinned at the blond girl. "Hi. I'm Banjee. This is very awkward."

The girl giggled, a choking dorky laugh, "Yes it is, isn't it," she paused, shrugged, and continued, "I'm Leah, and the grumpy bruiser is Fey." She pointed at the carrot-top, "Don't mind her. She's always like this about strangers. And dangerous people. But if Molly trusts you..." Leah moved past the trust issue too quickly for Banjee to properly comment, "And the Lady in Green over here is Agura. She's sarcastic."

"That's right, I possess no other characteristics." Agura muttered, "You've really nailed me in my entirety."

Banjee smiled, "Nice to meet all of you," He gestured to Porkchop, Monkey and Lani, "You guys should introduce yourselves. It's only polite."

"But—" Lani objected, "What about… Banjee…"

"We're among friends here, Lani, I'm sure," Banjee grinned again, the same flawless, innocent grin that exuded confidence.

Lani sighed, and waved a hand unenthusiastically, inwardly wincing, "I'm Lani Tam."

"I-I'm Monkey," Monkey shrugged, glancing at Lani with his eyebrows raised.

"Porkchop," Porkchop nodded stoically.

There was another awkward pause. Porkchop nudged Monkey, "Didn't you leave Sparky in the back of the Junker?"

"Ohyes! Wanna help me… check on him?" Monkey added lamely.

"Yes!" Porkchop and Monkey burst from the kitchen back into the yard. Banjee stared after them, and locked gazes with Lani.

She shrugged, "Boys."

Banjee turned back to the table, "So, Molly owns this place, right? She seems… tough."

"Really?" said Leah.

"Well, from what Dan and Kurt have been saying they seem to be terrified of her…"

"With good reason," Agura smirked. Banjee tilted his head, silently asking for more information. Agura rolled her eyes, "If they haven't told you, I'm not about to."

"I will!" Leah smiled. Fey glared at her. "Come on Fey, it's not like they're likely to go to the cops or anything."

Banjee pouted, "We're not terrorists."

"Yeah, doesn't matter," Fey sighed, "This is America."

"What? That doesn't-" Lani began.

Banjee cut her off, "No, it doesn't make sense, but honestly?" He turned to the other women in the room, "We're at you guys' mercy here. So you can tell us whatever. We won't tell."

"It's not that cool of a story," Leah shrugged, "Mostly because at the point everything happened we were trying to go legit."

"Legit?"

"Well, Lani, dear," Fey said, rolling her eyes, "We used to be pirates. I'm sure Leah was going to drag it out and make it sound a lot cooler than it actually was, but we were a biker gang, and then we did some illegal stuff. Eh." She shrugged off the crime as though she had admitted to baking a cake.

"Wait… illegal stuff?"

"Stealing goods. Trading goods. Getting parts. Doing stuff. Working with some gangs. The usual."

"And Kurt was involved in this?"

"Kinda. At first he was just supplying contacts," Leah explained, "Well, him and Dan. Then they got a bit more involved, and then Mark got more involved." She sighed, "Then everything went to hell. Dan caught wind of the… problems with the deal before any of us. Disappeared. Kurt was in Europe at this time, out of the way, so he wasn't embroiled… physically, lets say. He backed out and it was no problem. Then things went south. Turns out, someone was giving info to the FBI.

Kurt got out before the snitch got his name, but the rest of us were tagged, easy. Mostly 'cause the Mafia found us first. That was when Molly got shot. The rest of us escaped relatively unscathed, minus the 'being arrested' bit. We weren't in too long, two years, and Markie less than even that, what with him being underage and all. Still, it wasn't… good. We've barely been out three months, and things just aren't the same. They _can't_ be the same…" Leah trailed off, staring into the distance. Agura coughed.

"Leah, honey, I think you've given them enough to chew. I think we deserve some answers too."

Leah jolted, as if she'd awakened from a dream. "Oh, right!" She paused, twiddling her thumbs awkwardly, "Uh… So how did you get into terrorism?"

"We're not terrorists," Lani sighed wearily.

"Then why are you called terrorists?"

"We drove in an interdimensional race to save the world from evil robots. There was some sort of secret organization that was doing something secret involved, and also aliens." Banjee said casually, in the tone of someone talking about breakfast. If Fey could make piracy seem like nothing, he was certainly going to one-up her.

Leah glanced at Agura whose eyebrows were raised, then to Fey, whose own eyes threatened to pop out of her head. "Uh..." The blonde said, "I think we deserve a bit more of an explanation than that…"

Banjee grinned, "I'd be delighted to tell you the whole tale!" He coughed, and put on an overly serious expression that couldn't help but make Lani giggle.

He began, "Once upon a time, in the rainforests of Puerto Rico, there lived a young racer whose name was Banjee Castillo. He loved racing. He also loved trees. He loved a lot of things, most of which we won't get into here. But he did love racing, and he was awesome at it. One might almost say he was the most awesome at racing. Indeed, his friend Esmerelda, who herself was a racer from Louisiana, often commented on how good of a racer Banjee was.

So it was of little surprise to Banjee when one day he got an invitation to a race. Not just any race—a World Race, hosted by a guy called Dr. Tezla. Dr. Tezla didn't only invite Banjee. Others who showed up included a Chicagoan, Kurt Wylde, Brian Kadeem, from the Western Sahara, Taro Kitano, Japanese, and a Californian known as Vert Wheeler. And then Tezla gave the racers some fuel that went at 300 miles per hour.

That's when things got weird…"

And so Banjee talked. He talked about the majesty of the Realms, discussing the volcano leg (and teasing Lani about her driving into lava), and the mountainous rainforest, to the desert and the icy wilderness. He spoke about the teams system that was set up to "encourage competition". He dove into a deep and detailed who's who on the World Race, revealing that he had known a lot more about the other racers than that he had given on. When he described the then childlike Markie, it was tragic, and when he talked about Vert and Alec's close relationship, it was heartwarming. He poked fun at the various phobias each racer shared—Kurt's nerves whenever it came to anything even close to skydiving, Markie's fear of looking out the window and seeing a face there, Lani's apprehension towards clowns, Vert's arachnophobia, Skeet's terror whenever the subject of food poisoning came up…

He talked lovingly about the relationships that had grown between the drivers, even though they weren't _supposed_ to be getting along in that manner. Dan Dresden of Street Breed and Rekkas of the Dune Ratz often ended up chatting about various interesting bits of information. Yucatan, a stunt driver for the Road Beasts, got dragged into late night discussions with Toni Berry of the Dune Ratz and _all _of the Wave Rippers about stunt driving and it's relationship to physical stunts. Banjee's voice grew slightly softer when he talked about Kadeem, who he always ended up eating breakfast with—they were usually the first up. Kadeem would talk about his younger siblings, always with the same worried concern, the concern of an adult, a parent, not a man of barely 25. Banjee recalled telling 30 jokes over the course of 20 minutes in an attempt to get the leader of the Dune Ratz to lighten up, and waking all of the other drivers up with his victory cry when he succeeded in procuring a smile…

And then he talked about Kurt and the Drones, and about how Kurt had been trying, trying to do the right thing. And failing. He talked about Vert winning the World Race, and about the kid convincing everyone that the right thing to do was to put the Wheel back.

"I guess we all kinda knew it was really _his_ story. But you know, the whole 'rookie takes on the big leagues' thing was just too much of a narrative. It was too unreal. But then he ended up winning, ended up telling us to do the right thing…" Banjee sighed, "He even gave Kadeem his prize money. That kid…"

Banjee continued the tale a little longer; briefly over viewing the following few years as a dark time, pointing out how listless reality had become compared to the vivid weirdness of the Realms, then describing his feelings as Tezla invited him back, ("All the emotions I'd felt over the years of listlessness welled up inside me… I was being given a second chance, to go back to that place that I had missed for so long. To go back to whole other worlds, to see those strange sights and breathe that strange air. The Realms called to me. I think they called to us all..." he sighed, "It was like I couldn't say no.")

He tapped his fingers together, eyes closed, "When we got to the new base of operations, Lani was showing us around—there was just the four of us, me, Kadeem, Dan and Alec. We were pretty happy to be in the Realms, racing, again, the Nitrox letting us hit speeds of 300 miles per hour. There was a feeling of something missing but we ignored it. We were getting to race again, it was awesome, and we didn't really need to think too much. Maybe we should have. We didn't think. Why weren't the top racers, the people who had won, why weren't they invited back? But we didn't want to think about it…

It was the fog Realm that drove home that the new game was _wrong_. Because we lost Dan in the fog. I mean, Tezla only let us in one at a time, and we didn't question it at first, not even after. Then me and Kadeem and Alec started to figure out how really rotten the whole thing was. We weren't allowed to call the outside world, we weren't allowed to go further than 15 miles from the base, we weren't allowed to go into the Realms to look for Dan, and the restrictions were just getting tighter and tighter. Alec was freaking out, I was kinda worried he was going to get a heart attack or something. But we wanted to keep racing in the Realms because it was important damnit. We didn't know why, but we had to keep going. I tried to stay cheerful, I've always tried to stay cheerful, but it was so damn _difficult_.

Then Alec… His car got struck by lightning, and he fell off the tracks, and he was falling, he said something about stars, and then we lost him. And then… Well, I hit the water in the swamp realm at about 250 miles per hour. I woke up in this… place. There was a bunch of stuff there, and Alec and Dan too. And we just… waited."

Banjee grinned, "Lani's got the rest. I have no idea what the hell happened when I was in the Junkyard, so she'll have to fill you in."

Lani talked a bit, but her voice was slightly choked up, as though she was trying very hard not to cry.

After the pair had finished, Fey burst into laughter. Lani glared at the pirate, but Banjee remained calm, smiling bemusedly at the incredulous redhead.

"You expect us to believe this? This is madness! You have no proof, no killer robots, no—"

Perfectly on cue, Monkey and Porkchop returned to the kitchen, with Sparky in tow. Monkey grinned goofily at the shocked expressions on Fey, Agura and Leah's faces. "Bad timing?" he quipped.

* * *

Alec returned to the group in a huff, and the journey to Austin continued in a stony silence. Karma had managed to capture a few precious moments of sleep and was ready to continue driving, and Tork had taken shotgun, occasionally muttering instructions. Shirako was nestled in the middle seat, curling up to his neighbors like a heat-absorbing cat. Taro lay in the cramped backseat of the car, trying to sleep. Nolo and Alec very decisively placed Shirako between them. Alec was soon dozing against the window, with Shirako rested on his shoulder, music still blasting. Nolo took the opportunity to ask Tork and Karma for leadership advice.

"I just don't know what to do about him, I mean he's not really a Teku, but he's also Vert's friend and I think he needs some help or something." Nolo paused, "Argh. I don't know what to do. I'm not a leader. I mean…"

"You're being too hands-onsy, and you're trying to hard," Tork stated, "Left here."

"But how am I supposed to help if I don't try?"

Karma flipped the turn signal and pulled off the highway, "Yeah, but people like Alec have to figure out they even _have_ issues before they're going to ask for help."

"People like Alec?"

"Remember Vert?" Karma asked, adjusting the rear-view mirror, "He was all angsty after the Ruins Realm. Do you know why?"

"Well, he was miserable about not being good enough or something like that…"

"Was that the only reason?" Karma raised an eyebrow, "I mean, I don't know, but it's something you need to think about. People tend to get upset for one reason, but that one reason is the cusp of a thousand other smaller issues. Personally, I think you need to leave Alec alone for a bit. He's just getting used to being back, and he obviously misses his family, and Vert. He'll open up to us when he's ready."

"If you're sure…"

"If you'll just take a right down here, Karma. We'll be there pretty soon, 'bout 45 minutes." Tork said, leaning forward and fiddling with the radio.

"What're you doing with the radio? The guys are trying to sleep."

"Currently I just want to find out what's going on, and what I'm getting my sister into." Tork grimaced. "I'm not sure I really want to do this, thinking about it. Getting Kells mixed up in all of this."

"You're sure that the Silencerz won't figure out that she's involved with us though, right?"

"My mom was an unofficial foster parent to a bunch of kids, 'cause the home that was run in our area was such a shambles; too few social workers, too many kids, not enough funding. Kelly stayed with us most every night, since she was just a tot. We grew up together. But we're not recorded as staying together on any government papers or anything." Tork shrugged at the end of the sentence, trying to shake the worry off his back.

"Seems like it'll be safe. Houston's a lot… quieter than I heard it was." Nolo commented, glancing out the windows into the dark streets. There was nothing outside, just lamps lighting the roads, and the occasional glowing window. He jumped slightly as the radio spiked with static, as Alec and Shirako groaned slightly in their at the interruption. A soft female voice was talking behind the fuzz of the distortion. Tork wiggled the radio a little more, and her voice became clearer.

"... all quiet out west, currently, except for more Quicksilver activities up in Seattle, so if you're up there stay inside. We're going to do some more Quicksilver sighting reports, so if you see them in your neighborhood, be sure to send us at the Voice an email. Prohibition is still not in effect in the following states; Michigan, Iowa, Oregon, Louisiana. Stock up on booze while you can. Texas curfews have been pushed back to 11 pm, but try not to stay out any later. Nevada; Congressman Bearman has been ousted for his anti-authoritarian stance on the new policy push. Someone buy that man a beer—and an armed guard. If he survives past the week a revolution will have started. Now, onto what I'm sure everyone's wanted us to hear about; the transmission President Blake released out to the _mainstream media_. We'll be analyzing this as a part of our ongoing series discussing the bizarre situation that has cropped up in Russia. First, let's take another look at the transmission, shall we?"

There was more distortion, and then a hoarse, male voice began to speak; "People of the earth, listen. The Herald is calling, announcing reality."

Alec shot bolt upright. "That's Vert!" Karma quickly hushed him.

"-Not going to harm any of the earth's peoples, should this nation be left alone. We are not entirely without pity, extermination in any case not being the best solution particularly for such a resource as the human race. We will not bother you. We are not cartoonish villains, but if you cross us, we will be far worse than the simple evildoers humanity creates. We know we do wrong, but our purpose is too important to be left to the side. Leave us be, and all will be well. However, be warned; we have access to and control of every Russian nuclear device, and we are all too willing to use them should any state get out of hand. We do not care about the Russian citizenry, and any retaliatory strikes will be meaningless against us. Know this, humanity. And Major? Come and get us." A moment of static, before the female voice returned.

"So, we have a human male, presumably on the side of whoever is controlling Russia. The language used seems to point to this dictatorship to be under the sway of aliens or madmen. What do you think, Steve?"

Tork carefully turned the radio off, and motioned for Karma to turn left. There was complete silence in the car. Alec's eyes were wide, Shirako's mouth was open, and Nolo had his head in his hands, shocked. Taro's brow was slightly furrowed, his mind inscrutable. Tork guided Karma down another street, sighing heavily, "I really hope we can get some answers soon."

"That was Vert…" Alec repeated quietly, staring off into the distance.

Karma guided the clunky vehicle smoothly through the streets. "Should we call the others?"

"They're going to call us tomorrow anyway. We might as well wait until we get settled in, and maybe get some questions answered by Kelly. Doesn't really matter, though, that broadcast'll probably be all over the news. The others'll figure it out before we call 'em, most likely." Tork muttered in reply, casting a glance back into the car. "Left here."

* * *

"WHAT THE HELL WERE YOU THINKING?"

"We just—" Kurt tried to begin, but Markie and Dan knew it was useless to try. Molly was going to rage at them somewhat nonsensically and they were just going to have to ride out the storm.

"You disappear from my life for two years, after losing me my leg and getting my entire crew in prision, and then return as _terrorists_, with the balls to be seeking _shelter_, proudly potentially putting my life in danger? What. The hell. Is wrong with you lot? Do you know how much the State wants to get their hands on you? They're willing to pay more money than I think the Government has, you're all over the news, and people have been killed for looking like you. You know they execute people for harboring _robbers_ nowadays, right?"

"… Wha-"

"And you're asking for shelter? My Pirates and I are already on three thousand watch lists! What, are we supposed to help you guys hide, and happily go off to jail when you lot are inevitably killed off? Are we supposed to magically erase your existence from the registries everywhere? I mean, you killed people! You killed people with little to no provocation! You're all complete monsters, and everyone wants you dead, so you come to me. Why would you come to me, what did I do to you? I hate you guys so damn much. Why would you put me in this situation? Haven't I suffered enough? My God!"

"Wait. Molly, you're going too fast for me. Since when has the state been able to kill _thieves_?"

"Where've you been for the last 7 months? Russia's been locked down, the US has become a police state, the UN has given the US a free pass to do whatever the hell it wants, so we're currently in control of most of the world. We've been eating a shit sandwich. Everything that could possibly be bad _is._ How did you not notice?"

"We've been… busy."

"With what?"

At that moment Leah burst through the door grinning madly, her blonde hair flying about her head, "They have a robot! His name is Sparky, 'cause he sparks! Agura said something about not being paid enough for this so she's wanting to visit New York for a while, and Fey is freaking out. But it's adorable! You need to come see!"

Molly stared at the blonde for about three minutes. "Leah, please close the door and go back down into the kitchen." Leah did so, and Molly continued; "Now boys, I think I'm owed an explanation. Tell me about everything from the beginning."

* * *

"We're here." Tork said, nodding towards a large warehouse styled house to their right. It was windowless, and light-less but for a lamp placed beside the front door. Tork ducked out of the car, and Karma followed, as the rest of the passengers began to stir from their slumber. Covertly, Tork rapped at the door frame, shivering slightly in the December cold. A second passed, in which Alec managed to fall out of the car, and the door opened just as Nolo began to giggle.

"Tork!" A lanky, tall girl with dark skin and multicoloured hair flew out of the doorway and embraced the Metal Maniac in a tight hug. "I thought you were dead or you were going to die or go to prison or you'd lost your face or forgotten about me but you're alright so it's all going to be okay, oh thank god you're okay."

Tork staggered a little beneath the girls hug, patting her shoulder awkwardly. "Hey, Kells. 'S good to see you, you're looking well." He glanced around nervously, "Uh… Can we come in?"

"We?" Kelly said, pulling back from her embrace. "You and your lady friend?"

"Uhh… Me, Karma, and four others. We kinda need a place to stay for a while. I can explain everything, I just feel like we shouldn't be in the open."

Karma added, sharply, "And if you could give us an explanation of what's happened over the past few months it would be much obliged. We've been somewhat out of commission."

Kelly nodded. "Come on in, then."

_H. Stilte's Journal, Unknown Date, Unknown Time;_

_A good deal of tyranny goes by the name of protection._

_A man without a vote is man without protection._

**AN/ Yes, this chapter ends on less of an oomph than it began but I'm tired and I wanted to get this up before it went on for another 7 pages. So yeah. More WTF, I know, but we're going to get some answers in the next chapter. But not about Vert and Kadeem. I didn't fulfill last chapter's preview again either; nobody is drunk (yet). I do like Tork's sister, and Leah, just because cheerful characters make me happy. Hope you all liked the little recap.**

**And yes, Hot Wheels Battle Force 5 characters **_**are**_** in this universe, but BF5 is pretty much incompatible with this storyline.**

**Blah blah I don't know what to write down here right now. **

**Next time! Months pass quickly, information is gathered, plans are made, and relationships are forged.**


	11. Phone Calls and 8 Months

**AN/ Sorry, guys, I've been really busy over the last few months, and have had a total writers block for all fanfiction. Hopefully, I'll be able to write a couple more chapters before I get back to school after the summer. I don't really have any excuses. You'll also have to excuse this chapter; it's just me trying to get back into rhythm. I'll try and update again soon—they're back in the realms next chapter, and then after that we'll get back to Vert and Kadeem! So… I dunno, don't kill me? **

_H. Stilte's Journal, Unknown Date, Unknown Time;_

_You are not alone._

"I know I'm not alone. But it's a different… thing. I'm not alone, but I feel lonely. You get that, right?"

"Alec, I think it's just 'cause of the time we spent in the Junkyard. Being around people again. I dunno. Total human isolation—it's just not something that's supposed to happen to people. We've been outside society for so long, getting back…"

"It's like we're looking at everything from the outside," Alec laughed, "It kinda sucks actually. I tried to go downstairs to the club in the cellar, but I just didn't feel comfortable surrounded by so many drunken people. I dunno. People kept trying to talk to me and I just kinda laughed and ignored them."

"Well, that's your coping mechanism," Banjee grinned, though Alec couldn't see it over the phone, "You know what Markie's coping mechanism is?"

"What?"

"Gardening."

"Seriously? Ha, my God, that's comedy gold."

"I haven't stopped mocking him about it yet."

"That's your coping mechanism then?" Alec laughed.

"Yeah…" Banjee paused, "So, you've been there for a month, right? What's it like?"

"Eh. It's… interesting. Really busy. There are a lot of people, revolutionaries and stuff. Tork's sister is nice. She's super energetic, but means well. She and her friend Amy keep the place by themselves—Amy does all the financial stuff and contacts bootleggers, and Kelly keeps the bar and stocks the stockroom and cleans and does all the manual labour. I think we're being helpful. We've been sleeping in a warehouse, which is surprisingly comfortable."

"Heh. We've been sleeping in a barn, which is surprisingly uncomfortable," Banjee interjected, "But do go on."

"Yeah. Uh, Tork is super protective of Kelly. It's not obvious at first but the look he gives anyone who talks to her would scare Chuck Norris."

"Apparently Chuck Norris jokes are no longer vogue. Just a comment."

"Really? Huh. Times have changed. Anyway, Shirako has been doing some DJ-ing, and Karma and Taro are 'in' with the revolutionaries, since they're smart and know people and stuff. Nolo keeps trying to get me to do things but I feel really apathetic. I am building myself a new car, though, but apart from that I just want to sleep."

"I hear ya, bro," Banjee said, "Though we've been helping with _farmwork_, so our situations may be a little different."

Alec laughed, "Just a little bit."

Click.

"So there could be a 400 MPH burst if we added slightly more francium!"

"Monkey, you do realize that francium has a half-life of 22 minutes at its most stable, it's the second rarest metal in the crust of the earth and is the most unstable natural element? Its liquid temperature is over 600 degrees, for gods sakes."

"You're such a killjoy, Karma. Come on Shirako, you're an engineer, back me up on this."

Karma tilted the phone towards Shirako, who said, "Seems like it'd be cool. But pretty dangerous."

"And incredibly expensive," muttered Porkchop, not quite out of the phone's reach.

Monkey glared at him, then turned back to the phone, "If we put a small amount in our Nitrox supplies, the explosion could rapidly push us beyond even the Silencerz cars! We'd win easily."

"At the cost of exploding," intoned Karma, who didn't seem fond of the prospect.

"Dude. It'd be totally awesome."

"You're out of your mind."

"You're no fun."

"No comment."

Click

"You saw that Russia invaded China, right?"

"Yeah. It's terrifying. If the a nuke goes off… Bam, rise of the drones, end of the human race."

"Vert'd probably survive. He's on their side, after all." Taro said, dryly, "I wonder why anyone would side with the Drones."

Kurt frowned. The comment was obviously directed at him. "Taro, you _know_ I was lied to." he sighed, rubbing his forehead, "If Dan here can let that go for five seconds, why can't you?"

"I guess I just never really thought that _Vert_ of all people would end up working for the Drones."

"Maybe they're controlling his mind or somethin'?" Added Markie, hopefully.

"You saw what happened with Kadeem, though. He was totally mindless, and seemed… I dunno, not Kadeem-like. Like it was a fake Kadeem. I just can't tell. It just doesn't seem like he's being _controlled_—Vert I mean."

"Yeah, I got that feeling too."

"Have you talked to Alec about it?" Dan asked.

Taro snorted, "I don't talk about feelings if I can avoid it. In fact, I don't talk at all if I can avoid it. And if Alec has an opinion he isn't sharing it."

"I feel sorry for him. I know what it's like to think you've lost your best friend." Dan spoke into the phone, but his eyes were fixed on Kurt, who looked away uncomfortably.

"Do you have a plan?"

"Get the wheel up. Race. Win."

"Good plan."

Click.

"How much longer?" Lani wrapped the cord around her finger as she talked, though corded phones were foreign to her. She hadn't realized the things were around anymore. "The boys are getting restless, on both ends. And we both know this revolution isn't going to lead anywhere. It's all about the Chargers or the Wheel or something, isn't it."

"Hmmm." Said Tezla, unhelpfully, and noncommittally, "It shouldn't be too much longer."

"You know," Lani frowned into the phone, glancing at the door, "This'd be a lot easier if you just _told_ me what was going on. Or had me help you. I'm your assistant for a reason, you know."

"I know."

"So, what, are we stuck out here for another couple of months?"

"I'd rather not have people within the new Acceledrome until I have fully set up all its facilities, including security. My last few attempts at containing the foolishness of my enemies to the outside did not end well."

Lani raised an unseen eyebrow at the muddled statement, but didn't say anything, hoping her silence would say what she couldn't.

"Not much longer. Two months." He promised.

"Okay." She said. It wasn't. She said it anyway.

Click.

"We talked to some of the revolutionaries and the people on the black market, and they got us some parts. So our cars shouldn't be too much of a problem to finish." Karma said. Shirako glanced up from the PCB he was toying with to give her a look, and then went back to his work. Karma sighed, and turned back to the phone, "But the police have really clamped down on cars and car parts, especially good ones. How have you guys been doing with that?"

"Well, I still have a bit of a reputation in the racing world. People owe me favours. Plus, the girls have been pretty helpful in getting us parts as well. They're still angry at me, but they don't want to see the world end. Should be on the road again pretty soon."

"Well, that's good news I guess. As long as we all have cars within the month—Lani said we'd be back to racing by the fourteenth of August, right?"

"Yeah," Kurt said, "And hopefully it'll be okay this time. No stupid rivalries, no kids with massive chips on their shoulders, no cocky experienced drivers, no horrific injuries, and no problems springing from being uninformed. Hopefully."

Click.

"It's ready, come when you can." Tezla said.

Click.

"So you know how Vert is afraid of spiders? You never told me that story."

"It's not a funny one, bro, 'n I'd rather not tell it to you right now. It'd just bring down your mood."

"Ay, but nothing could bring down my mood right now!" Banjee grinned, bouncing on the other end of the line, his voice full of energy, "I had never experienced a barn dance before! Es said she went with her cousins and it was so much fun, she said she would bring me some time, but she hasn't had a chance yet—and now, when I see her next, I will be able to show her all my sweet dance moves!"

Alec had to laugh. Banjee's enthusiasm was as contagious as ever.

Banjee's smile widened, "So you haven't forgotten how to laugh! That's good. Are you willing to tell me a story, then?"

Alec stopped smiling, and sighed, "Vert's mom was an arachnologist, did you know that? Studied spiders. Vert's always was good at stuff like biology and mechanics, fitting stuff together, mostly because of her. Anyway, we were going home from school one day, like normal, I said bye and walked down to my house, and about half an hour later, mom got a phone call from Vert." Alec was starting to talk a little quicker now, as though he was trying to get words out faster, "He found his mom… well… He called an ambulance, but it was far too late. They said it was a brown recluse. But Vert was sure it couldn't have been for ages, since she knew how to deal with that sort of thing. Nevertheless, he's been terrified of spiders ever since. And… yeah."

There was a pregnant, awkward pause.

"Oh." Banjee said, the bounce having left his voice some, "So when I threw the rubber spider at him..."

"Not the most sensitive reaction in the world."

"Yeah."

Click.

**AN/ Hopefully there will be another update soon. Coming up; rivalries are rekindled, conspiracies get more confusing, and portals reopen. See you then!**


End file.
